News / Red Sea: Aries crew free, but more escalation on the way as box ships flee

Photo: VesselFinder

Iran claims to have released the crew of Aries, who have been held captive for just short of three weeks.

The 15,000-teu MSC container vessel and its crew of Indian, Filipino, Pakistani, Russian and Estonian nationals were taken captive on 13 April, with video footage from the vessel showing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) marines rappelling onto the deck from a helicopter.

Iran had been helping coordinate the actions of its proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis, behind the scenes; making Aries its first direct intervention in the Red Sea.

The IRGC launched the strike, which the US National Security Council called “an act of piracy” and a “blatant violation of international law,” a fortnight after an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed 11, including an IRGC general.

Iran said Aries was linked to Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer, chairman of Zodiac Maritime.

“The seized ship, which turned off its radar in Iran’s territorial waters and jeopardised the security of navigation, is under judicial detention,” said Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a post on X yesterday.

In response to Red Sea disruption, which also saw MSC Orion attacked last week, 600 km off the coast of Yemen, in an escalation of the area under threat, more containership capacity has shifted from Far East-North Europe to FE-Med trades.

Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand told The Loadstar that, by mid-April, “capacity on Asia-Med [was] up by 8% already year on year, whereas it’s down 3.1% on Asia-North Europe. West Med transhipment ports… may already be exceeding their peak productivity levels. The port of Barcelona is handling 48% more transhipment teu in Q1 year on year. 

“We can clearly see the attractiveness of this trade from a carrier perspective. [Re-routing round the Cape] is a costly revamp of a large network… so they are chasing all the surcharge dollars they can get to recoup the cost. Being a carrier overexposed to the contracts markets, you simply had no choice but to push hard. Maersk’s loss in Q1 24 is testament to that.”

Meanwhile Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi militia, pledged to step up attacks on ships in the Red Sea until Israel makes peace with Gaza and the US withdraws from Yemen.