Qatar calls for international action to keep Bab el-Mandeb open

Doha raises the alarm over a second maritime chokepoint

Qatar has called for coordinated international action to keep the Bab el-Mandeb strait open, warning that disruption there would compound the economic and security shock already affecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Ministry communications director Ibrahim bin Sultan Al Hashmi delivered the message at a September 15 briefing in Doha, presenting negotiation and regional cooperation as the only sustainable route to protecting navigation.

The intervention followed territorial gains by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement around the southern Red Sea. Euronews reported that Houthi forces had captured the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands after government-aligned units withdrew. Those gains followed the group’s seizure of Mocha and Perim Island, placing it in a stronger position around the narrow entrance connecting the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea.

Why the waterway matters

Bab el-Mandeb is a critical link in the route between Asia and Europe through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Ships avoiding it must generally travel around southern Africa, adding distance, time, fuel costs and pressure on freight capacity. Its importance has grown further because the Hormuz disruption has already restricted another route central to Gulf oil and gas exports.

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline can move crude from producing regions to Red Sea ports and thereby bypass Hormuz. That alternative is incomplete, however, because tankers sailing south from those ports still pass through Bab el-Mandeb. Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure and the group’s declared restrictions on Saudi shipping have therefore connected Yemen’s battlefield shifts directly to international energy security.

Diplomacy under growing pressure

A British statement to the UN Security Council on the same day independently confirmed the broader escalation. The UK said Houthi operations inside Yemen, attacks on Saudi Arabia and efforts to consolidate control along the Red Sea coast were endangering international shipping and obstructing humanitarian access. It also called for attacks to stop, detained personnel to be released and the UN-led peace process to resume.

Qatar’s statement did not announce a new maritime agreement, and there is no confirmed closure of Bab el-Mandeb. It is a diplomatic warning about a rapidly worsening risk, not evidence that the waterway has been blocked. The next indicators will be whether regional governments revive navigation talks, whether commercial carriers change routes, and whether Houthi forces attempt to translate their new coastal positions into tighter control over passing vessels.