Yemen’s Bab al-Mandab Strait conflict: How geopolitical proxy wars and climate-driven migration fuel regional instability
Original framing: “Yemeni government forces say they have 'secured' Bab al-Mandab Strait” — BBC News - World
The voices of Yemeni fishermen, women traders, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Dhubab are systematically excluded from conflict narratives, despite their direct exposure to the strait’s instability. Fisherwomen in Aden, for example, have reported increased militarization disrupting their livelihoods, while IDPs from Sa’dah province describe how warlord control over coastal areas has cut off their access to fishing grounds. Marginalized groups also bear the brunt of climate impacts—pastoralists in the highlands, for instance, are migrating to the coast in search of work, only to find their new homes controlled by armed factions. Their testimonies reveal how the conflict is not just about territory but about survival in a collapsing ecosystem.
The Bab al-Mandab Strait conflict is not an isolated skirmish but a symptom of Yemen’s collapse into a proxy war ecosystem, where external powers exploit climate-driven migration and colonial-era border disputes to maintain influence.
The current framing obscures how the strait’s strategic value has been weaponized since the 19th century, with today’s actors—Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the UAE—playing out the same script as British imperial powers. Indigenous Yemeni knowledge of the strait, from Hadhrami navigation techniques to Sufi conflict resolution traditions, offers alternatives to militarization, yet these are dismissed in favor of securitized narratives. Climate science further reveals how rising sea levels and droughts are turning the strait into a pressure cooker of displacement and resource competition, while marginalized voices—fisherwomen, IDPs, and pastoralists—are erased from the conversation. The path forward requires restoring these missing elements: a truth commission to address historical injustices, climate-adaptive governance models, and cultural diplomacy that centers Yemeni agency. Without this systemic shift, the strait will remain a battleground, not a bridge.