12% Of Global Trade, Millions Of Oil Barrels: What Houthi Blockade In Bab el-Mandeb Means For Middle East

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia, citing retaliation for a blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on Sanaa International Airport.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have announced an immediate maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia, putting the spotlight back on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most critical shipping chokepoints. The move raises fresh concerns over disruptions to global trade and oil flows through the narrow gateway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, a route that carries around 12% of global trade and roughly a quarter of the world’s container traffic via the Suez Canal.

A Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a video statement that the maritime ban against Saudi Arabia will be effective immediately, describing it as an “equation of an eye for an eye.”

There were few details, but the deputy head of the Houthi media office, Nasruddin Amer, said on X that the Bab al-Mandeb strait will be closed in response to what he called Saudi Arabia’s “unjust blockade on Yemenis for over 10 years.”

Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the gateway to the Red Sea through which around 12 per cent of the world’s trade usually passes. A fourth of global container trade transits through the 32-kilometre (20-mile)-wide strait to and from the Suez Canal.

The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked. It is unclear whether the Houthis will resume that level of attack against neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Notably, Saudi Arabia is already under pressure as it uses its East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which remains in the grip that Iran imposed shortly after the US and Israel attacked it on February 28.

The Saudis have been sending millions of barrels of crude oil a day through the pipeline.

The Houthis are also a crucial part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance,” which also includes militant groups in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. The rebels have had a large stockpile of drones, but several Houthi members previously told the AP that the stockpile is running low after its attacks during the Israel-Hamas war.

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition against the Houthis and imposed an air and sea blockade on Yemen in 2015. Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A truce was reached in 2022.

That truce has been threatened in recent days after the Houthis said the Saudis struck the Sanaa airport in an attempt to affect a flight carrying Houthi leaders back from Iran, where they attended the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The plane landed safely at another airport.

The Houthis then launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport in the most significant confrontation in years.

By allowing a direct international flight to land without the approval of the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis sought to establish a new reality in which they could independently make decisions over Yemen’s airspace, experts told the AP.

“We affirm the right of our great people to respond to the blockade with a blockade,” Saree emphasised on Monday, adding that Houthis are prepared to confront “any foolish act committed by the reckless Saudi enemy … with a comprehensive and decisive escalation.”

The US and Israel responded to the Houthis’ earlier attacks on shipping with an air campaign across Houthi-held areas in Yemen until a deal that saw the rebels stop their assaults.

Disrupting transit through the Bab al-Mandeb forces shipping firms to route vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, significantly increasing costs.

(With AP inputs)