Kamaran Islands

Kamaran lies off Yemen's Red Sea coast, beside the approaches linking the southern entrance of the sea with ports farther north. In 1513 Afonso de Albuquerque brought his Portuguese expedition to the island after failing to capture Aden. His force remained there for an extended stay, but the anchorage did not provide an easy refuge. Provisions were scarce, and illness spread among the men.

The episode exposed the limits of holding an island position without secure supplies. Albuquerque could bring an armed fleet into the Red Sea, yet maintaining it required food and healthy crews as well as ships and weapons. Kamaran thus entered the history of Portuguese attempts to intervene in a maritime region also contested by the Ottomans. Its place in that struggle depended on the practical conditions of an island anchorage along the Yemeni coast.