Bab el-Mandeb Traffic Collapses 56% After Houthi Blockade: Has Yemen Seized Control of the Red Sea Without Closing It?
Commodity-vessel crossings fell from 34 to 15 after the Houthis announced an embargo on Saudi-linked shipping. The strait remains physically open, but fear, insurance and route changes are producing the economic effects of a partial blockade.
Commercial traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait has fallen by more than half since Yemen’s Houthis announced a blockade targeting Saudi-linked shipping.
Kpler data cited by regional reporting showed 15 commodity vessels crossing on July 26, compared with 34 on July 20, the day the embargo was announced. That represents a decline of approximately 56 percent.
Clarksons Research measured a comparable collapse in tonnage, reporting that traffic over July 25 and 26 was roughly half the already reduced second-quarter average.
The precise numbers vary by data provider and vessel category. Some systems count commodity ships, others all tracked commercial traffic. Ships can also switch off automatic identification systems or use unusual routes.
The direction is unmistakable: the Houthi threat has sharply reduced confidence in the route.
The strait is not completely closed.
Ships continue to pass. Some vessels that initially turned around later resumed their journeys. Shipping companies maintain contingency plans rather than declaring the entire Red Sea inaccessible.
This allows opponents of the Houthis to say the blockade has failed.
It also misses how maritime coercion works.
Ansarullah does not need a conventional navy capable of stopping every ship. It needs owners, insurers, captains and charterers to believe a vessel may be attacked if it uses a Saudi port or ignores Houthi instructions.
Fear performs much of the enforcement.
The Houthis strengthened the threat by attacking Saudi-linked tankers and claiming strikes on oil infrastructure in Jizan, Yanbu and routes carrying crude from eastern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia responded with airstrikes against Houthi-controlled sites and promises to protect navigation.
Every exchange increases risk.
A ship does not need to be hit for the owner to reroute it around the Cape of Good Hope. The longer journey consumes more fuel, ties up vessels, increases freight rates and delays delivery.
The economic effect spreads across oil, grain, fertiliser and manufactured goods.
Saudi Arabia is particularly exposed.
The East-West Pipeline and Yanbu export facilities became more important when Iran disrupted the Strait of Hormuz. The Red Sea route was supposed to provide resilience.
Houthi pressure creates a second chokepoint.
If both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are restricted, Saudi Arabia can produce oil but struggle to move it through normal routes.
The Houthis present the blockade as reciprocal action after years of restrictions and military intervention in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia and its allies describe it as terrorism against civilian commerce.
International law does not automatically recognise a non-state armed group’s declaration as a lawful naval blockade. Traditional blockades require effectiveness, notification, impartiality and compliance with humanitarian rules.
The Houthis may not be seeking legal recognition. Their objective is strategic leverage.
They can pressure Riyadh to stop airstrikes, alter policy toward Yemen or accept a political settlement. They can also demonstrate their value to Iran by opening a front far from Hormuz.
How much control Iran exercises over the operation remains disputed.
The Houthis receive Iranian weapons, technology and support, but they have their own leadership and Yemeni objectives. Treating every attack as an Iranian order may simplify attribution while increasing the risk of U.S. strikes inside Iran.
Shipping companies cannot wait for that debate.
They must decide whether crews can safely transit now.
The decline may be temporary. If Saudi defences stop attacks and several vessels cross safely, traffic can recover quickly.
It may also become self-reinforcing.
Fewer ships mean less routine traffic and greater visibility for each vessel that enters the strait. Higher insurance costs make alternative routes more attractive. One successful attack can reverse weeks of confidence-building.
The most revealing fact is that 15 vessels still crossed.
The Houthis have not sealed Bab el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia has not restored normality.
The strait exists in an unstable middle condition: physically open, militarily contested and commercially restricted.
The open question is whether the Houthis can sustain that pressure without provoking a war that destroys their coastal capabilities—or whether Saudi Arabia will discover that reopening a waterway is much harder than bombing the group threatening it.