IMO Works to Build Maritime Security Capacity for Waters Off Yemen
The IMO is advancing its Red Sea Project to improve security and the coordination of maritime situational awareness in the Horn of Africa and the waters off Yemen.
Under the project, the IMO supported a four-day workshop for the internationally-recognized Republic of Yemen government from 22 to 25 June 2026, alongside the European Union-funded Crisis Response Project for the Red Sea and the Western Indian Ocean. The workshop brought together representatives of all agencies involved in the policing and management of the waters off Yemen in the offices of the Ministry of Transport in Aden.
The workshop's objective was to develop a roadmap for the establishment of two entities: a National Maritime Information Sharing Center based in the headquarters of the Yemeni Coast Guard, which already exists in embryonic form, and which is then to feed into a Regional Maritime Information Sharing Center based 100 yards away on the Aden dockside in the Yemen Maritime Affairs Authority.
The IMO was keen for these two bodies to adopt the regionally agreed 2023 Djibouti Code of Conduct/Jeddah Amendment Information Sharing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) as the foundation for Yemen's national procedures. Indicative of the challenges ahead, these SOPs have not yet been translated into Arabic, and doing so will become an early task on the project roadmap.
The IMO and EU effort is a regionally coordinated project, so that littoral states in the area can share not only information but also procedures to be adopted for both routine reporting and the handling of emergencies.
A separate project proceeding at the same time, sponsored by Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and EU donors, seeks to strengthen the capabilities of the Yemeni Coast Guard. The UK has sponsored the introduction into service of two patrol craft, the Aden (IMO 4698611) and the Mayun, now based on Perim Island. This project has also seen improved coordination between what was the Coast Guard and maritime patrols operated by the National Resistance Forces in the southern Red Sea.
Practical problems, however, are manifold. There has been a power struggle between the Minister of the Interior, Ibrahim Haidan, who sought to displace Major General Khaled Ali Mohammed Al Qumali as head of the Coast Guard — a move quashed by the Saudis. Such internal conflicts tend to arise when individual ministries or departments win foreign aid support, and others seek to benefit as well.
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Somali-based piracy is increasing in Yemeni waters, with the Secretary General of the IMO calling for the immediate release of 44 sailors held hostage since March off Puntland on three tankers: the Palau-flagged MT Honour 25 (IMO 1099735), the Togo-registered Eureka (IMO 1022823) and the St Kitts & Nevis-flagged Sward (IMO 917424402).
More ominously, Houthi-Saudi relations have deteriorated, as talks to reach a general peace that would involve Saudi subsidies and a lifting of the blockade have stalled; an outbreak of fighting within Yemen would once again threaten a rise in attacks on shipping passing through Yemeni waters.