Yemen’s Houthis announce ‘maritime embargo’ on Saudi Arabia

Yemen’s Houthis have announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia.

The Iran-backed group’s military spokesman said it would begin immediately and was in retaliation for a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in Houthi-controlled north-western Yemen.

He gave few details about the embargo but a Houthi media official said they were closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is the southern gateway to the Red Sea, to Saudi vessels.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi authorities.

The Red Sea has become crucial for oil shipments from Saudi Arabia during the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

It comes a week after the most significant escalation in the largely dormant conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia since an informal truce took effect in 2022.

The Houthis said they had launched missiles at Abha airport in south-western Saudi Arabia in response to air strikes on Sanaa’s airport that they blamed on the kingdom.

The strikes were claimed by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, which said it had wanted to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in the capital without authorisation.

Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa. The conflict escalated in 2015, after the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government’s rule.

The fighting has reportedly left more than 150,000 people dead and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 22 million people in need of some form of aid, according to the UN.

On Monday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said Saudi Arabia had imposed an “unjust and oppressive siege on our dear people for nearly 12 years, plundering our resources and imposing a comprehensive blockade on our ports and airports by land, sea, and air”.

He then announced that the group had decided to respond by declaring a “maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye'”.

“Any foolish act committed by the reckless Saudi enemy through all escalation will be met with a comprehensive and decisive escalation,” he added.

Sarea did not provide any further information about the embargo, but the deputy head of the Houthi media office, Nasruddin Amer, wrote on X that the group’s forces were “closing Bab al-Mandab to Saudi enemy ships”.

The Bab al-Mandab Strait, a 32km-wide (20-mile) waterway located between south-western Yemen and the Horn of Africa. It connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, which is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez canal.

Soon after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, the Houthis began attacking merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with missiles, drones and small boats, saying they were acting in support of the Palestinians.

Four ships were sunk, nine crew members were killed, and commercial traffic through Bab al-Mandab hit a record low as shipping companies rerouted their vessels around southern Africa.

Although the Houthis paused their attacks in response to the Gaza ceasefire last October, the number of transits through the strait has yet to return to previous levels, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.

In response to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia has diverted more than 70% of its crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

About 4 million barrels per day (bpd) have been shipped from there in recent weeks, compared with about 973,000 bpd a year earlier, according to data from Kpler and Signal Ocean.

Total petroleum volumes transiting Bab al-Mandab also rose to 7.4 million bpd in June, or about 7% of global output.

Mohammed Albasha of the US-based risk advisory firm Basha Report said it was not yet clear whether the Houthis would begin targeting vessels heading to Saudi Arabia.

“Even if no ships are attacked, the announcement alone is likely to disrupt shipping and create uncertainty for Saudi ports. Whether the Houthis move from threats to direct action remains the critical issue,” he told Reuters news agency.