Red Sea Attacks Lead to Environmental Emergency along Eritrean coast

The Red Sea and Eritrea’s coastal regions are facing another environmental disaster as a result of ongoing hostilities in the Middle East. The international community must act swiftly to avert a larger catastrophe and strengthen international response mechanisms to environmental emergencies in conflict.

Source: PAX

Image: Houthi Media – Explosions set-off that sank the MAGIC SEAS – July 8, 2025

While the Houthi’s attacks on commercial or humanitarian vessels are by no means legitimate, the need to stop hostilities in the region – particularly, to end the genocide in Gaza – remains pressing. Without addressing the root causes of conflict, the cycle of violence and environmental destruction in the Red Sea will only continue, putting ecosystems and civilian lives at ever greater risk.

Over the course of July 6-8, Iran-backed Houthi militants from Yemen targeted two cargo ships with explosive drones, missiles and gunboats, severely damaging and ultimately sinking both vessels. Beyond the continued disruption of commercial navigation and tragic loss of life among crew members, the attacks resulted in an unfolding environmental disaster, with massive oil spills threatening the Red Sea marine ecosystem and oil slicks currently drifting toward Eritrea’s coast. The international community must act swiftly to avert a larger catastrophe and strengthen international response mechanisms to environmental emergencies in conflict.

Both ships, the MAGIC SEAS and the ETERNITY C are bulk carriers, owned by Greek companies and sailing under the Liberian flag. The former one was reportedly transporting 17.000 tons of fertilizer, with suggestions this being ammonium nitrate, and an unknown amount of steel from China to Turkey, while the latter one was returning from a humanitarian delivery of aid to Somalia for the World Food Programme. The two ships were targeted by the Houthis – also known as Ansar al Allah – in what they described as a solidarity act with Palestinians amid Israel’s assaults on Gaza, continuing the campaign of maritime attacks the Yemeni armed group has been waging since November 2023. Soon after the Houthis took control of the ships they placed explosives and blew up both vessels, causing them to sink. While the majority crew members were eventually rescued, several seafarers were killed, and some others were taken hostage by the militants or are reported missing.

Acute environmental risks from maritime attacks

Besides the repeated disruption of navigation in the Red Sea and casualties among crew members, these attacks come with alarming environmental risks. Footage broadcasted through Houthi social media channels shows oil spills forming around vessels after their sinking. In the following days, satellite imagery indicated several major oil spills around the locations of the ships. These ships often use heavy fuel oil and diesel, with certain behaviour characteristics when spreading in the sea, forming a light and darker oil sheen on the surface on the seawater, which can be observed on satellite and aerial imagery. Often with these types of slicks, part of the oil will dilute and evaporate over time, and a part will sink, while the rest will move with the current that can wash upon the shores, affecting flora and fauna.

PAX initiated monitoring of the oil spills to track the direction they were moving and the potential risks to the marine and coastal environments of Eritrea and Yemen. Three massive slicks with a length of 80km and 46km, originating from the ETERNITY C, initially moved southeast toward the Hanish islands, but currents brought them closer to the Eritrean coast. Another large 45km-long oil slick coming from the MAGIC SEAS is also approaching the shores of Eritrea. Imagery provided to PAX by Planet shows how the oil sheens are now affecting the coastal areas in a remote part of Eritrea. On July 17, the most northern 30km long oil slick was visible 17km away from the town of Tylo, closing in on the Buri-Irrori Hawakil Protected Nature Reserve.

Depending on the direction of their further movement, the slicks could affect several protected areas, including the Barasole Protected seascape, which is a unique biodiversity hotspot home to sea turtles, coastal seagrasses, mangroves, and is part of a migration route for birds. There are plans to make Barasole part of the Buri‑Irori‑Hawakil‑Berasole mosaic, a proposed protected area spanning ~150,000 hectares that combines coastal wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs and arid shrubland ecosystems, supporting high species richness and landscape connectivity. The latest Planet imagery on July 17 shows the slick only 13km away from the nature reserve. 

Onshore, the movement of the oil slicks could pose risks to the livelihoods of fishing communities that depend on the marine environment. The remoteness of these locations will pose additional challenges for deploying clean-up operations staff and equipment.

There are further concerns over the possible environmental impacts of fertilizer cargo of the MAGIC SEAS. The release of its content into the marine environment could pose additional local ecological risks, as leakage could lead to eutrophication, oxygen depletion, toxic ammonia buildup, and widespread marine ecosystem damage, including massive algal blooms and resulting dead zones due to lack of oxygen in the water. As a consequence in a worst-case scenario, this can lead to mass dying of fish and affect sessile organisms. 

Environmental action needed to protect livelihoods and biodiversity

This is not the first incident when the Red Sea’s environment has been endangered by oil pollution caused by maritime attacks or broader conflict dynamics in the region. In the past, concerted international action helped to prevent large-scale environmental disasters associated with sinking or decaying vessels. For instance, in 2024, the salvage mission, led by the EU’s Operation Aspides, safely removed a burning oil tanker Sounion – which was also attacked by the Houthi militants in the Red Sea, avoiding a potentially catastrophic oil spill. In 2023, a UN-led operation successfully averted a looming environmental and humanitarian disaster by transferring more than one million barrels of oil from the aging oil tanker FSO SAFER off the coast of conflict-struck Yemen.

In reaction to last week’s attacks, the UN Security Council authorised continued monthly reporting on Houthis’ targeting of the Red Sea shipping by the UN Secretary-General. However, it is crucial for States to move beyond condemnation and take urgent action to remove the struck vessels and clean up oil spills, including the following steps: 

• Initiate and provide funding to a salvage operation with a strong environmental expertise to remove the wreckage of the sunken ships, contain any remaining hazardous cargo or fuel, and address oil pollution risks to the coastal and marine environment. 
• Support clean-up and remediation of impacted coastal areas in Eritrea by specialized environmental agencies with equipment and resources and ensure sustainable environmental monitoring in those areas, including in ecologically sensitive and protected areas like Barasole. 
• Integrate environmental capacity into peacekeeping and maritime protection missions in the region, to make sure they have expertise in environmental risk assessment and response units – either embedded or through collaboration with specialised environmental agencies. At present, NGOs and informal actors are often filling this critical gap for monitoring, but this should be institutionalized and resourced.

More broadly, these most recent maritime attacks with a distinct environmental dimension once again highlight the need for the establishment and resourcing of an international mechanism to respond to environmental emergencies in conflicts. The current lack of a structural approach to conflict-pollution and wider environmental risks from armed hostilities stresses the importance of advancing a comprehensive Environment, Peace and Security agenda at the international level – to ensure better protection of people and the environment they depend on. 
Lastly, while the Houthi’s attacks on commercial or humanitarian vessels are by no means legitimate, the need to stop hostilities in the region – particularly, to end the genocide in Gaza – remains pressing. Without addressing the root causes of conflict, the cycle of violence and environmental destruction in the Red Sea will only continue, putting ecosystems and civilian lives at ever greater risk.