Commercial ships will have to obtain a permit from Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Maritime Affairs Authority before entering Yemeni waters, Houthi Telecommunications Minister Misfer Al-Numair said on March 4, according to The Jerusalem Post.
The Houthis have been consistently attacking merchant shipping in the region for months in protest against Israel’s war with Hamas and subsequent U.S. and U.K. airstrikes on militants in the country. The result has been thousands of miles worth of diversions for swaths of the world’s merchant fleet as they seek to avoid the dangers of the waterway.
The territorial waters affected by the Yemeni order extend halfway out into the 12-mile-wide Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow mouth of the Red Sea through which around 15% of the world’s shipping traffic passes on its way to or from the Suez Canal.
“(We) are ready to assist requests for permits and identify ships with the Yemeni Navy, and we confirm this is out of concern for their safety,” Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, reported Al-Numair as saying.
