The Suez Crisis - II

The sleepy farming village of Amer overlooks the Suez Canal. This March, the village was suddenly thrust into the limelight after the Ever Given—a colossal container ship—got stuck nearby. It was a windy morning when the Ever Given got wedged sideways in a single-lane stretch of the canal and clogged one of the world’s most vital waterways. That created a massive traffic jam that held up $9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic. The villagers—like the rest of the world—have not seen anything like that before.

The contrast between tranquil village life and the busy artery of global shipping is stark. Farmers in Amer eke out a living tending to small fields and livestock, while before them pass behemoths of world trade—vessels carrying millions of dollars’ worth of cargo. But the canal is a source of intense pride for residents of the area. They call it “our canal” and the older ones still remember then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s decision in 1956 to nationalise the canal despite fierce pressure from Western powers.

The salvage efforts have been the main topic of conversation in Amer, home to several thousand people who grow clover and cabbage and tend to water buffaloes, cows, goats and sheep. They rooted for canal authorities as they battled to dislodge the vessel. And almost a week after the accident, tug boats and dredgers, taking advantage of high tides, set free the ship carrying some 20,000 containers—ending a crisis that had disrupted a global shipping network and halted billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce. The canal handles some 10 per cent of the world trade flow. Last year, some 19,000 vessels passed through it.

A flotilla of tugboats wrenched the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized Ever Given from the canal’s sandy bank, where it had been firmly lodged since March 23. As the tugs blared their horns in jubilation, Amer residents cheered. “Mission accomplished,” a villager said, reports the Associated Press.

The vessel is now anchored in the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south ends of the canal. The ship’s next movements would depend on “several legal and procedural” measures that the canal authority would discuss with Ever Given’s operator. When blame gets assigned, it will likely lead to years of litigation to recoup the costs of repairing the ship, fixing the canal and reimbursing those who saw their cargo shipments disrupted. The vessel is owned by a Japanese firm, operated by a Taiwanese shipper, flagged in Panama and now stuck in Egypt, so matters could quickly become complicated.