Yemeni Houthi threaten to block strategic Red Sea shipping lane for Saudi Arabia
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SANAA - Yemen's armed Houthi movement threatened to block the strategic Red Sea shipping lane if the Saudi-led coalition it is fighting keeps pushing toward the port of Hodeidah it controls, the Houthi-run SABA news agency reported.
Yemen lies beside the southern mouth of the Red Sea, one of the most important trade routes in the world for oil tankers, which pass near Yemen's shores while heading from the Middle East through the Suez Canal to Europe.
While SABA gave no details on how Houthis could carry out any such move, the Bab al-Mandab strait, where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea, is only 20 km (12 mile) wide, making hundreds of ships potentially an easy target.
