An Indian Ocean arm nearly as long as Madagascar itself
The Mozambique Channel is the Indian Ocean arm between Madagascar and Mozambique, about 1,700 kilometres long and 419 kilometres across at its narrowest. Comoro Islands sit in the north; Mayotte and other scraps of France share these waters with African and Malagasy coasts.
The International Hydrographic Organization closes the channel's northern end with a line from the Rovuma estuary through Ras Habu, the tip of Grande Comore, to Cap d'Ambre at Madagascar's northern point. Its southern boundary runs from Cap Sainte-Marie, Madagascar's southern extremity, across to Ponto do Ouro on the mainland, while the two coastlines form the sides. The deepest sounding, 3,292 metres, lies about 230 kilometres off Mozambique, and a warm southward flow, the Mozambique Current, feeds into the Agulhas Current along South Africa's east coast.
Ownership of its specks of land is contested. France governs Mayotte, which the Comoros claims, and the Scattered Islands: Madagascar and the Comoros both claim the Glorioso group, and Madagascar claims Juan de Nova. Paris values them for the exclusive economic zones they generate, rich in fish and possibly hydrocarbons, while Madagascar argues the islets should have passed to it at independence. Off the Quirimbas Archipelago, the St. Lazarus Banks rise from around 2,000 metres to within 12 metres of the surface and draw deep-sea anglers.
The channel has seen war at close range. On 15 November 1939 the German raider Admiral Graf Spee stopped the British coastal tanker Africa Shell near Cape Zavora; a boarding officer greeted Captain Patrick Dove in polished English with apologies for the fortunes of war, sent the crew rowing ashore, took Dove prisoner and scuttled the ship, despite Dove's protest that it lay in Portuguese waters. In 1942 the channel was again a flashpoint during the Battle of Madagascar.
Today roughly 30 percent of the world's tanker traffic passes through. An Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique has increasingly disrupted shipping, and South Africa's navy has run intermittent anti-piracy patrols here since 2011.
Source: Mozambique Channel
