Yemen Conflict and Global Shipping Impact

Well, you might not be, uh, paying too much attention to the war in

Yemen while

the war between Iran the, and the US continues.

But the Yemeni authorities say that Iran-backed Houthi fighters have

seed a coast-- have seized a coastal city, Mokha, which

sits at a very important point controlling the Bab

el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea and the Indian

Ocean. The strait is just twelve miles wide at

its

narrowest and acts as a major global choke point sitting

between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and

Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. Farea

al-Muslimi is a research fellow at Chatham House's Middle

East and North Africa program.

The Houthis' takeover of al-Mokha, uh, port city is

significant both from a military economic, uh, point of view, but

also from a symbolic point of view.

This was, uh, one of the most important front lines

against the

Houthis in the past and the most active, uh, specifically in

twenty eighteen. But it's significant also, uh,

economically

because it's a port that was also, uh, that is, uh, an export

and import. And it's important military because it

sits

right across Bab el-Mandeb. You're now k- around, uh,

forty kilometers far from the other end of the Horn of Africa.

So absolutely this is significant for the Houthis,

but it's most

importantly significant for their regional ally, Iran, which

now sits on two of the most important choke points in the Middle

East, Strait of Hormuz and now Bab el-Mandeb.

That is as much as a leverage as a nuclear bomb can give the Iranians, but

in fact in a more harmful way and in a less obvious way.

It puts them in a huge privilege in their negotiation and

fight with the United States and Israel.

And can you explain why that is and how this influences

global shipping routes?

Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz together put around more than

thirty-five percent of the fuel trade.

And that's significant not just for the world, but it's also significant

for the Saudi Arabia, who have s- relatively survived the

Hormuz closure because it used the Red Sea as an

alternative route, and now it no more has that, uh, route,

at least on the shorter term. And I think it's significant

also because of the maritime security that exists in the

Red Sea, and it's a significant of the failure of

various

international attempts to control the Red Sea, specifically the,

uh, Aspides operation, but also other European and Western

operations that have tried to secure the Red Sea.

And you've explained how this impacts the war in Iran.

The Houthis are Iran-backed, um, of course, and now they

have control over those sort of two crucial points.

Um, what about the people in Yemen?

The people of Yemen continue to pay the biggest price of all of these

both domestic civil wars, but also regional proxies.

The world has been spared the Yemen cost of a war because

there hasn't been a wave of immigrations coming out from Yemen compared to

Syria, let's say, or Ukraine or other conflicts in the world.

But Yemen is-- there is more than twenty million people who

have been suffering a

humanitarian situation since twenty fifteen.

This is not gonna get any less, and they will be stuck in the middle of

this.

It will increase, um, the prices of goods.

And let's not forget things are in a way worse in Yemen today despite

the last four years of a truce because the Houthis have a

crackdown on aid workers, NGOs, UN staff,

m- leading the most of the world community to

actually leave

northern Yemen and Sanaa. So absolutely, this is a miserable time for the

people of Yemen. And in addition to the hunger we will see

and obviously the

death and the blood, we are also going to see another round of

tens of thousands of displaced Yemeni families, civilians in--

who will be stuck or who are stuck in this, uh, front lines.

That will remain a massive issue. And again, because Yemen doesn't

send refugees, rather it has internally displaced,

it will remain to

be a tragic but absolutely invisible crisis.