Maersk decides Red Sea too unsafe for its ships for now

Container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said it would once again stop its vessels from sailing through the Red Sea, a vital trade corridor, after another of its carriers came under attack in the space of a few weeks.

“We have decided to pause all transits through the Red Sea / Gulf of Aden until further notice,” Copenhagen-based Maersk said in a notice on its website. While it had previously announced a pause, that only lasted for two days as it reviewed the situation.

Iran-backed Houthi militants have said they are targeting merchant ships transiting the Red Sea that have any kind of link to Israel to punish Tel Aviv for the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Those connections have looked increasingly spurious, prompting swaths of the merchant fleet to stay away.