A person watches Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea deliver a televised statement in Sana'a, Yemen, July 20. EPA-Yonhap
CAIRO — Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Monday announced they are imposing a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for a blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on Sanaa International Airport, threatening another vital waterway for global shipping and raising fears of renewed conflict.
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 on how the embargo might work, but the deputy head of the Houthi media office, Nasruddin Amer, said on X that the Bab al-Mandeb strait will be closed to the Saudis in response to what he called the kingdom'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 percent of the world's trade usually passes. A fourth of global container trade transits through the 32-kilometer (20-mile)-wide strait to and from the Suez Canal.
