Houthi threat puts Bab al-Mandeb shipping route under renewed pressure

Yemen's pro-Iranian Houthi rebels have claimed attacks in the Red Sea on two Saudi oil tankers and said they will blockade the Bab al-Mandeb strait as part of a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia.

Bab al-Mandeb, known in Arabic as the "Gate of Tears", is at the southern end of the Red Sea. It links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean and separates Yemen from Djibouti and Eritrea. The passage is about 100 kilometres long and is about 30 kilometres wide at its narrowest point.

The strait is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes because the Red Sea connects Europe and Asia. Tankers and cargo ships use the route to reach the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, cutting thousands of kilometres from voyages between Asia, Europe and North America.

A Suez Canal Authority report said about 26,000 ships passed through the Suez Canal in 2023. The number fell to 12,700 by 2025 after Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

The Bab al-Mandeb strait was already an important oil route before the latest Middle East war. The US Energy Information Administration said 12 percent of world oil shipments passed through the strait in 2023. The source said shipping fell sharply after Houthi attacks linked to the Gaza war, but Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz increased the importance of Bab al-Mandeb again.

Analysts said Saudi exports through the Red Sea port of Yanbu roughly tripled in the spring to a record of about four million barrels a day before easing slightly. That amount would equal about four percent of pre-war global demand. John Evans, an analyst at PVM, said exports from Yanbu had reached 75 percent of Saudi Arabia's peacetime exports.

Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, said a simultaneous crisis at Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb would cause a larger shock than either blockade alone. He said much Saudi oil is exported to Asia. If Bab al-Mandeb were closed, he said, those ships would need to sail north through Suez, cross the Mediterranean, pass Gibraltar and go around Africa before reaching Asia. Evans said that route would take about 50 days, compared with about 20 days on the usual route.

The source said the latest Middle East war began on February 28, when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran and Tehran responded with strikes across the region. It said the Houthis had so far remained outside the conflict, despite Iranian threats to shut Bab al-Mandeb.

A dispute between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia escalated in July, with the two sides exchanging fire for the first time since a 2022 truce. The two sides have been at war for more than a decade as part of Yemen's civil war.

The Houthis previously attacked shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel in solidarity with Palestinians. The source said the proximity of shipping lanes to the shore allowed the group to use relatively basic means, including drones. Those attacks led the United States and Britain to bomb Yemen and the European Union to launch Operation Aspides to protect shipping.

Traffic through the strait has not returned to 2023 levels. Bridget Diakun of Lloyd's List Intelligence said during a recent videoconference that since January 2025 major shipping companies had begun testing the route again by sending vessels through. She predicted that traffic driven to Bab al-Mandeb by the closure of Hormuz would now stop.