The Bab-el-Mandeb

Its Arabic name means the Gate of Grief, after the hazards sailors met here, and the past three years have given it new meaning. The Bab-el-Mandeb is the southern entrance to the Red Sea, the strait every ship bound for the Suez Canal from Asia or the Gulf must pass. Since late 2023, attacks on merchant ships by Yemen's Houthi movement have turned it into the world's most closely watched shipping lane after Hormuz, sending much of the container trade around the Cape of Good Hope instead. In 2026 the Iran war scrambled the picture again, pushing Saudi oil exports onto Red Sea routes and through this narrow gate.

The strait separates Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula, from Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, joining the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It is about 50 kilometers long and roughly 26 kilometers wide at its narrowest. The Yemeni island of Perim splits it in two: the eastern channel, Bab Iskender, is only about 5 kilometers wide and 29 meters deep, so ships use the western channel, some 20 kilometers wide and over 300 meters deep, where inbound and outbound lanes are separated. The low volcanic Seven Brothers islands sit off the Djibouti coast. Djibouti, at the mouth, hosts military bases of the United States, France, China, Japan, and others, a measure of how many powers watch this water.

The strait gained its global weight in 1869, when the Suez Canal turned the Red Sea into a highway between Europe and Asia. Its modern crisis began in November 2023, when the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, began attacking ships they linked to Israel, saying they acted over the war in Gaza. They seized one vessel and sank four, two of them in July 2025, and paused after the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire. In July 2026, months into the Iran war, the Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. Even so, Lloyd's List Intelligence counted about 280 transits a week in late September 2026, swelled by tankers loading at Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Yanbu, and EIA estimates put oil flows at 8.1 million barrels a day in the second quarter.

• Eritrea
  A Red Sea highland with a reputation for solitude bordered by
• Djibouti
  A strategic furnace at the gate of the Red Sea bordering country
• Eritrea
  A Red Sea highland with a reputation for solitude bordering country
• Yemen
  Arabia Felix, a land of high mountains and deep crisis bordering country
• Yemen
  Arabia Felix, a land of high mountains and deep crisis borders
• Red Sea
  A young ocean in the making, splitting Africa from Arabia connects
• The Cape of Good Hope Route
  The long way around Africa between Asia and Europe, revived by the Red Sea crisis and the 2026 Iran war diversions go via
• The Strait of Hormuz
  The narrow outlet of the Persian Gulf, through which about a fifth of the world's oil passed in 2025 linked oil chokepoint
• Egypt
  The gift of the Nile and a bridge between Africa and Asia linked to the Suez route
• The Horn of Africa
  The African peninsula that juts toward Arabia located off
• Somalia
  The Horn of Africa, where land meets two seas nearby country
• The Suez Canal
  Egypt's sea-level shortcut between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, still recovering from the Red Sea crisis on the route to
• The Asia–Europe Route via Suez
  The main artery between Asian factories and European ports, through Malacca, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal part of
• Red Sea
  A young ocean in the making, splitting Africa from Arabia southern entrance of