Several tons of sea shrimp washed ashore in Yemen

According to a number of environmental activists, the mass death of crustaceans may be related to the incident in the Red Sea, where the British cargo ship Rubymar sank in early March after an attack by Yemeni rebels. As it later turned out, there were over 20 thousand tons of fertilizers with ammonium sulfate and phosphate on board.

Meanwhile, according to marine biologists, the death of shrimp may also have a natural cause associated with a sharp change in water temperature or a lack of oxygen dissolved in the water. This, however, does not exclude the possibility that large amounts of chemical fertilizers entered the sea.

By order of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, a group of experts on marine biodiversity was sent to Hadhramaut. According to the head of the General Directorate of Marine and Aquatic Research under the Ministry of Water Resources of Yemen, Hana Rashid, dead shrimp measuring 4-5 cm filled the coastal zone over an area of about one and a half kilometers. Experts have not yet identified anything suspicious from an environmental point of view; in particular, they have not established obvious facts of marine pollution.

“Only one species died, namely shrimp,” she said. “This phenomenon is considered completely natural and is recorded annually during periods of climate change that affect the development and reproduction of marine life.” However, research is still ongoing, samples of material have been taken to establish the exact causes of the death of the mollusks.