Publication of the MICA Center’s 2024 annual report

For the sixth year running, the Maritime Information Cooperation & Awareness Center (MICA Center) has published its annual report on maritime security. The report lists and characterises the events recorded in 2024 affecting maritime security around the world. It provides a detailed overview of the situation and an unprecedented analysis of the evolution of maritime threats.

The year 2024 is marked by a worsening of threats to global maritime safety, and an expansion in maritime crime.

Against a backdrop of heightened international tensions, marked by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, armed conflicts on land are increasingly spilling over into maritime areas, impacting on freedom of navigation and the safety of port infrastructures. In the Red Sea and the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait, repeated attacks by Houthist rebels (124 ships targeted in the course of the year), have forced maritime traffic to be redirected en masse via the Cape of Good Hope. Around the Black Sea, port infrastructures have been particularly damaged, while the massive development of a “dark fleet” presents a maritime safety and security challenge.

After several years of decline, piracy is on the rise again (+110% in one year), particularly off the coast of Somalia. Drug trafficking is reaching record levels, with over 2,700 tonnes of cocaine produced and an alarming increase in the flow of narcotics from Latin America. Banditry remains a persistent problem in the Singapore Straits, the Gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean, while illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to threaten the food security of populations dependent on their fisheries resources, particularly in West Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Click on the following link to download the 2024 Annual Report: https://www.mica-center.org/en/home/download/4225/?tmstv=1738783629