The price tag for smuggling on European sea routes reached up to half a billion dollars last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN migration office, IOM, reported on Wednesday. Key points Total fees paid to smugglers on sea routes to Europe reached between $388 and $509 million in 2025:…
The Horn’s proliferating diplomatic appointments have done little to bolster African influence amid new Middle Eastern alliances. In September, Ansarullah (the Houthis) took control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, shattering the assumption that the insurgency was confined to northern Yemen. The group is now at the epicentre of the Middle East conflict and is the…
Growing ties between the Houthis and al-Shabaab could turn Red Sea instability into a more dangerous security threat for Africa. The United States-Israel February attack on Iran led to the Iran-backed Houthi militia of Yemen seizing territory at the entrance to the Red Sea, with grave potential consequences for Africa and the world. Intensifying Houthi…
Middle East oil exports, excluding those from Iran, surpassed their pre-war levels last week, despite attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler. For the first time since the U.S. and Israel launched their offensive against Iran at the end of February, the weekly average of…
Addis Ababa — Ethiopia has used the 81st United Nations General Assembly to put a broader strategic question before the international community: can a global system facing profound geopolitical, economic, technological and environmental change remain credible without giving greater weight to Africa and the Global South? For President Taye Atske Selassie, the answer is increasingly…
Addis Ababa — Ethiopia has placed its pursuit of reliable maritime access firmly on the global diplomatic agenda, with President Taye Atske-Selassie telling the United Nations that securing access to the sea is essential to sustaining the country’s economic transformation and deepening its integration into global trade. Addressing the General Debate of the 81st Session…
The African Union (AU) Commission has issued an urgent call for de-escalation in the Red Sea region, expressing grave concern over attacks targeting regional economic infrastructure and ongoing threats to international commercial shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In a statement released on September 17, the AU Commission condemned attacks launched by Houthi forces against…
The Houthi takeover of parts of the Red Sea gives the armed group a new platform to challenge global shipping. The group has taken over the port of Mocha, the island of Mayyun, and the Zuqar and Hanish archipelago about 160km north of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. These areas were previously controlled by Yemeni government…
Growing competition for African ports and security partnerships offers new leverage – if countries can avoid deeper geopolitical fragmentation. Ongoing conflict in the Middle East exposes shifting regional geopolitical fault lines that are pulling African states into an emerging macro-conflict system anchored along the Red Sea. This stems from several overlapping crises arising from US…
Yemen’s special envoy to the United Nations called on support from the international community after the Iran-backed Houthi militant group seized control of the Red Sea port city of Mokha. “This renewed war should alarm us all,” Hans Grundberg, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, warned at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council…
