Fishermen face deadly dangers as Yemen’s Red Sea becomes a warzone

Al-Makha, Yemen – Mazhar works on a sea that has long been a front line in Yemen’s conflict.

The fisherman, based in the city of al-Makha (also known as Mocha) on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, has long struggled to make a living since war arrived in the region in 2015.

Fuel is expensive, and so is renting a boat. But Mazhar, who is in his 40s and has a family that solely relies on the income from his fishing, has a bigger problem: whenever he sets out for the sea, he might not return home.

“Recently, a fishing boat in al-Khawkhah was fired on, and we lost two colleagues,” Mazhar said. “No one knows why, and the authorities haven’t announced the cause of the incident.”

Venturing beyond the shoreline is a dangerous gamble since the sea turned into a battlefield – Mazhar knows fishermen who have gone missing without a trace. But when there’s no food left at home, he decides to risk it anyway.

Yemen’s Red Sea coast is one of the main hubs of the country’s fishing industry, which before the war was the country’s second-largest source of export earnings after oil.

The Red Sea fishing industry has been impacted since the early years of the war, with fish exports from the region falling by about 70 percent, according to a 2018 study.

The region is strategically important for other reasons, too. Yemen’s principal port of Hodeidah sits about 160 kilometres (100 miles) up the coast from al-Makha, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait lies at its southern entrance, controlling entry into one of the world’s most vital waterways. All of that means that the coastline has been heavily contested since the early days of the war.