From Orabi to Nasser … the closing date of the Suez Canal

On the morning of Monday, March 22, the Egyptian Meteorological Authority announced that Egypt had been subjected to a “dust storm from Libya to hit the east of the country, accompanied by winds of up to 50 kilometers per hour, which caused difficulties in vision and disturbance in navigation traffic. The marina in the middle and red Bahrain, and the height of the waves of up to four meters, while the height of the waves can exceed five meters in the Gulf of Suez. It was not a few hours until the storm hit the Egyptian lands, but the force of that storm exceeded all expectations and circumstances to hit the global economy.

The next day, the Egyptian Suez Canal was in a new date at the forefront of the world scene. The giant container tanker “Evergiven” ran aground while crossing the canal at “151 km” on its next trip from China to the Netherlands. “EverGiven” flies the flag of Panama, but is run by the Taiwanese company “Evergreen Marine Corp”, which transported about 225 thousand tons of goods. As a consequence of this crime, traffic between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea was closed. While the jam was estimated at about 30 ships parked in the middle of the canal, another 40 ships were waiting in the Mediterranean and 30 in the Gulf of Suez in the Red Sea.

Egypt is arguably the biggest loser in this crisis, as the Suez Canal is a vital source of income for Egypt, the volume of its income amounted to $ 5.61 billion in 2019, accounting for more than 5 % of Egyptian national income. Some reports indicate that you are losing around $ 400 million every hour to the accident.

And in terms of global losses, each day of outage costs more than $ 9.6 billion in goods. The signs of the disaster appeared several hours after the suspension of navigation, as the prices of petroleum products rose on Wednesday morning and dozens of ships and tankers began to take the route of the Cape of Good Hope, which is 12 days more long than the voyage of ships. , leaving consumers around the world burdened with rising shipping costs. While the accumulation of goods in the canal affects food and medical supplies around the world, especially in light of the Corona crisis, some companies are considering using air travel as an alternative.

The “Evergiven” crime incident is one of many chapters in the Suez Canal crisis due to closure. The idea of ​​building it dates back to the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, who wanted to unite the White Sea with the Red Sea and unite France with its colonies in Africa, and with the beginning of the works in April 1859 by the Frenchman, Ferdinand Dulceps, it became the artery of the global economy, with more than 12% passing through it.

First closing

The first closure of the Suez Canal occurred during the Egyptian revolution led by military commander Ahmed Orabi in 1882, 13 years after its inauguration. The cost of establishing the Suez Canal and its opening ceremony was one of the main reasons for the deterioration of the economic and living conditions of citizens, in addition to allowing external interference from Western countries that contribute to the canal in the policies of the Egyptian state, which caused a crisis. Urabi-led popular movement against the grandson of Muhammad Ali Khedive Tawfiq and his allies. Urabi’s plan was to close the Suez Canal to prevent the arrival of British supplies, so it agreed with Dlespace to prevent British ships from descending into Egypt, but the latter opened the canal, causing the Urabi plan to fail and the defeat of the revolution and its captivity.

Second closing

In 1915, during World War I, the canal was closed by the British, for the second time, after the Ottomans attempted to attack the Suez Canal with the aim of cutting off the Allied supply route that passes from there. The Ottomans at that time began to invade the Sinai of the Kingdom of Egypt, which was a British protectorate, and the combined forces of the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire were defeated at the Battle of Rummana (August 3-5, 1916) by the British. 52nd Infantry Battalion and Australian and New Zealand Army Cavalry Battalion. The canal was closed for only one day.

Third closing

During World War II, the canal was closed for the third time, for a period of 76 days. At that time, the British closed the canal, following the war between British and Egyptian forces against Italian-German forces in Libya, until it reopened after the British victory at the Battle of El-Alamein.

Fourth closing

On the fourth occasion, the Suez Canal was closed for about five months. This came after the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956, after the Revolutionary Command Council, headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, decided to nationalize the Suez Canal for the construction of the High Dam and Lake Nasser in southern Egypt. , which resulted in tripartite aggression, to be reopened in 1957. Due to the global losses that caused the closure of the canal in it, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Freedom of Navigation approved at the Conference of 1958 Geneva, which classified the Suez Canal as an international waterway.

Fifth closing

As for the fifth closing, it was the most famous and influential. It occurred in June 1967 during the Israeli aggression against Egypt, after Gamal Abdel Nasser announced, on May 22, that Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran off the Gulf of Aqaba in front of ships carrying the Israeli flag and ships carrying equipment. military to Israel. due to aggressive acts carried out by Israeli forces. Following the defeat of Egypt and the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula by Israeli forces, Egypt declared a war of attrition and closed the Suez Canal, until 1975, that is, eight years after the closure.

It is noteworthy that the Suez Canal witnessed some accidents that did not significantly affect the movement of navigation, such as the stranding of a Greek ship after its engines failed in 2012, which caused the interruption of navigation for some time, until rescue units were able to remove it. In 2014, a collision occurred between a German container ship and a Singaporean ship, temporarily interrupting navigation.