Djibouti has intensified coast guard patrols along its strategic waterways as the Red Sea crisis unfolds.
Recall that Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen significantly stepped up a campaign of attacks against commercial vessels in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait between the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa since late November.
Launched in response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, the attacks have escalated in the past week. Helicopters launched from US Navy warships were used to repel an attack by militants on a ship owned by Maersk in January, leading the Danish shipping line to continue to pause all cargo movement through the area until further notice.
The narrow Bab al-Mandab strait is all that separates Djibouti from Yemen, from where the Houthi fighters have launched a series of attacks on Israeli-linked ships since November.
“When you’re securing something, not only the sea, and something happens, you need to increase the time before which is coming, and which is currently going on,” Colonel Wais Omar Bogoreh, Djibouti Coast Guard Commander says.
“That’s why we increase our capabilities, we increase how to secure the area more than before according to the situation currently going on in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab.
Djibouti has achieved economic growth during the past decade and the ongoing crisis could negatively impact the coastal nation.
The country hosts several foreign military bases, but it is not part of a U.S.-led coalition that has launched airstrikes against the Houthi group.
“We have a lot of friends of several countries working on the sea. And some of them have been [stationed] in isolation on the coast. We are working closely, we will collaborate and coordinate all the missions related to the security […],” Cl Bogoreh says.
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