Germany has recalled its frigate Hessen, which has departed the Red Sea without a replacement vessel being immediately dispatched to the region.
This is according to the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany, which issued a statement on Sunday saying the country would only send another air-defence frigate to resume the Red Sea mission in August.
"Germany and its partners are not standing idly by while the Houthi militia carry out illegal attacks," said German defence minister Boris Pistorius in the statement.
Hessen’s departure from the region leaves Greek, French and Italian forces to carry on with the European Union’s (EU) "Operation Aspides" naval mission in the Red Sea. Each country has contributed one air-defence frigate to the operation.
Denmark's Ivar Huitfeldt and Belgium's Louise-Marie were supposed to join the operation, but are both presently out of commission after experiencing weapons-system failures.
Head of Aspides, Rear Admiral Vasilios Gryparis, told Euronews that the operation needed more military vessels in the region to improve the flow of maritime commerce.
"We think that since each ship can accompany a certain number of merchant ships, if the number of ships was larger we could accompany more ships and therefore we could hope for a recovery of shipping traffic through these straits," Gryparis said.
However, the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian is still relatively well-resourced in the region. Several Aegis destroyers are on station and carrier strikers are present in the Gulf of Oman. US forces have also targeted and destroyed missile and drone threats on the ground before they can be launched in Yemen, an action EU leaders have said they will not join.
