ASSESSMENT OF THE RESPONSE TO ILLICIT WEAPONS TRAFFICKING In the

ASSESSMENT OF THE RESPONSE TO ILLICIT WEAPONS TRAFFICKING In the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea Global Maritime Crime Programme ASSESSMENT OF THE RESPONSE TO ILLICIT WEAPONS TRAFFICKING In the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea Assessment of the response to illicit weapons trafficking in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea Acknowledgements This report was prepared by the UNODC Global Programme on Criminal Ne. [...] 9 Assessment of the response to illicit weapons trafficking in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea Storm” in March 2015 and the truce in April 2022, and Maritime trafficking in the Arabian Sea that Yemen’s land borders are under the control of the to Yemen internationally recognized government, attempts to enforce the sanctions focused on the maritime domain. [...] Given the presence of Coalition warships close to the The two major ports on the Red Sea under the control Houthi shorelines in the Southern Red Sea, the main of the Houthis – Hodeida and Salif – were blocked by focus of maritime smuggling has been on the Arabian Coalition warships after the start of the intervention. [...] These transfers either take place off the coast of Soma- While the ports of Hodeidah and Salef have remained lia, or, at least in two cases in 2019 and 2020, in the under the control of the Houthi forces since 2015, the vicinity of the Sawdah Islands in the Gulf of Oman.21 Coalition naval presence in the Red Sea combined with Following the transfer, the illicit cargo is then moved to the UNVIM ins. [...] As in the case of the material challenges described in the The laboratory was opened in July 2023 in Aden and has previous section, the conflict also has taken its toll on the the necessary advanced equipment to test chemicals, human capacity of the Yemeni security forces to address match fingerprints and perform ballistic analysis.65 the challenge of the smuggling of weapons.67 On the one Between.