Maritime security in Africa’s Western Indian Ocean

The report analyzes maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO), emphasizing that threats like climate change, illegal fishing, and piracy are interconnected. It highlights the risks of increasing militarisation by global powers and the environmental dangers of rerouting shipping around the Cape of Good Hope due to Red Sea instability.

• The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) lacks a consistent geographical demarcation, which leads to divergent policies that hinder collective efforts to address maritime insecurity.
• Climate change acts as a multiplier and accelerator of insecurity in the WIO, causing shorter monsoon periods that expand trafficking windows and shifting fish stocks that threaten the economic security of island and littoral states.
• The WIO is highly vulnerable to climate-driven infrastructure damage and biodiversity loss; for example, the South African Port of Gqeberha has the highest global risk of climate-related downtime (15.72 days annually), and regional coral reefs face a high risk of collapse within 50 years.
• Instability in the Red Sea has diverted shipping traffic around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing the risk of maritime accidents and pollution, as evidenced by frequent container losses off the South African coast in 2024.
• The Southern Ocean is critical for global climate regulation but suffers from a governance vacuum regarding krill overfishing and the failure of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to establish new Marine Protected Areas in 2025.
• Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a persistent challenge, with the WIO ranking as one of the worst performing regions globally for coastal, flag, and port enforcement responsibilities as of 2023.
• There has been a resurgence of piracy since late 2023, partly because naval forces were diverted from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to counter Houthi attacks, leaving ships passing Somalia more vulnerable.
• Drug trafficking is entrenched in the WIO through four main routes (Southern, Lusophone, Indo-Pacific, and Asian), leading to severe social impacts such as the highest global rate of heroin addiction in Seychelles.
• Many maritime boundaries in Africa remain undelimited, creating potential for resource competition and external interference, with France involved in the most disputes in the WIO involving Comoros, Mauritius, and Madagascar.
• The WIO is experiencing increased militarisation and geopolitical competition, with the US, China, France, India, and Türkiye establishing bases or conducting military exercises, contradicting the goal of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace.

APA

Marggraff, D. (2025). Maritime security in Africa’s Western Indian Ocean. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/pages/1763963407495-sar-63.pdf

Chicago

Marggraff, Daniela. Maritime security in Africa’s Western Indian Ocean. Institute for Security Studies, 2025. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/pages/1763963407495-sar-63.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Marggraff |first1=Daniela |title=Maritime security in Africa’s Western Indian Ocean |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=November 2025 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/pages/1763963407495-sar-63.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{marggraff2025maritime, author = {Marggraff, Daniela}, title = {{Maritime security in Africa’s Western Indian Ocean}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2025}, month = nov, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/pages/1763963407495-sar-63.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }