The gate of tears through which the whole world must pass: from frankincense to tankers, from the first man to the last
In a narrow passage between continents, more is decided than what appears on the map. Here, currents, fear, and interests raise and topple empires
On the world map, Bab al-Mandab looks almost modest — a narrow sea passage between the Yemeni coast and the Horn of Africa, split by the island of Perim, or Mayyun, and exposed to winds that pass through the southern entrance to the Red Sea with almost mechanical persistence. In actual history it carries a weight far greater than its own width, because through this belt runs the contact between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, between the African coasts and the Arabian Peninsula, between empires and fishing villages — and today, the contact between fear for the global economy and the crisis in the Middle East.
The Arabic name is most often translated as the Gate of Tears or the Gate of Weeping. And indeed, that image gathers together centuries of fears. The sea here has always had a temperamental nature, the coasts are dangerous and rocky, the currents strong, and a misjudgment of the wind costly. Behind the poetic name lies a completely real experience of sailors who knew that entering this passage brought them into one of the most sensitive points between Africa and Asia.
Long before emperors, insurers, containers, and oil tankers, the space between East Africa and Arabia also belonged to the great story of human migration. The belt around Bab al-Mandab is counted among the possible southern routes by which early humans moved out of Africa toward Arabia and further into Eurasia. Before trade and politics, one of the fundamental crossings of human history took place here.
Today’s crisis has simply put the spotlight back on a space that had worked in the background of world systems for centuries. When the Houthis of Yemen threaten to close the passage, the world suddenly sees what geographers, sailors, and historians have known for a long time. The global order relies on chokepoints, and Bab al-Mandab is one of the most important. Moreover, in this crisis it could become checkmate.
Before Suez, a world of slow seas
Before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Bab al-Mandab had a completely different rhythm. The passage belonged to the great network of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, but that network, of course, did not function like a modern straight line from Europe to Asia. Every leg had its own calendar, its own ports, its own intermediaries, and its own conditions. Trade flowed in stages, through waiting, repacking, and long-lasting agreements.
In the ancient world, Roman Egypt, southern Arabia, East Africa, and the Indian subcontinent were connected by high-value goods of relatively small mass. Frankincense and myrrh from Arabia, pepper and spices from India, ivory, gold and other products from the African hinterland, textiles, metal objects, and luxury goods made up the economy of a sea that linked deserts, mountains, and the monsoon coast. Bab al-Mandab was the passage through which such goods moved, but also the place where customs, credit, warehouses, and political protection met.
In that network, Adulis held a special place — an ancient port in what is now Eritrea, important for the Aksumite world and for the link between the African hinterland and overseas trade. Around it one sees a great truth about the southern Red Sea. Wealth did not come only from the open sea. It arose at the point of contact between the sea and the interior, where caravans brought goods and ships took them over.
The strait was thus already in antiquity both a functional border and a traffic bridge at the same time. A ship that passed Bab al-Mandab had not thereby finished its voyage. It had only entered another system of winds, ports, and political relations. The history of this space therefore demands patient reading. Every era here is seen through a series of small but decisive transitions.
The sea as a calendar
The world before steamships knew the sea as a calendar. Monsoons determined when to set out, where to wait, and how much risk was allowed. In the Indian Ocean, winds served for centuries as the natural engine of maritime trade, and Bab al-Mandab was one of their most sensitive tests. Whoever was late in departing often lost the whole season.
Entering from the Gulf of Aden toward the Red Sea carried an additional difficulty. Ships that had reached the southern entrance of the Red Sea with the help of favorable seasonal winds would face a new sailing regime. Further passage north required fighting the wind, cautious coastal navigation, and frequent stops in ports. Bab al-Mandab was therefore a kind of gate of the calendar. One entered through it only when nature and the market together gave permission.
The maritime world of past centuries knew these rhythms without modern instruments. It knew them through experience, observation of the sky, the color of the water, the behavior of currents, and knowledge inherited from older sailors. In Bab al-Mandab, abstract courage did not win. Discipline that knew how to read all the parameters won.
Cities on the edge of the passage
Looking at the history of the southern Red Sea, one sees a chain of cities that lived off passage, waiting, and mediation. Aden, through the Middle Ages and early modern period, became one of the main crossroads of Indian Ocean trade. In it, the Egyptian, Arab, Indian, and African worlds met, and urban life developed through warehouses, brokers, money changers, tax collectors, sailors, and translators.
On the African side, places such as Zeila, the outlet of the Ethiopian and Somali hinterland toward the sea, and Aydhab, a port of enormous importance for pilgrimage and trade flows toward the Hejaz, held significance. Later, Mocha in Yemen became globally known for coffee. The name of the port turned into a commercial term that outlived the political power of the city. In each of these ports, Bab al-Mandab was both an entrance and a promise, but also a constant reminder that the sea never opens for free.
The life of these cities did not revolve only around goods. Here legal systems, religious practices, languages, and customs met. Pilgrims heading to Mecca shared space with spice traders, sailors from Gujarat, African intermediaries, local Yemeni authorities, and tax officials. The strait was part of a large cultural space that connected the coasts far more tightly than today’s political borders suggest.
Aden and Mocha show particularly well how maritime history develops through changes in goods. In one period frankincense and luxury raw materials dominate, in another coffee, textiles, and silver, and in the modern world, energy and containers. The sea stays the same. Only the economy of passage changes with tastes, needs, empires, and technology.
Empires seeking the key
For centuries Bab al-Mandab attracted powers that believed control over the sea could be reduced to control over one gate. Already in late antiquity, the space of the southern Red Sea lay within the field of interest of the Aksumite state, South Arabian kingdoms, and Byzantine plans. Whoever held the important ports and island points had customs revenue, maritime prestige, and the ability to influence an entire range of trade routes.
Later, Ottoman interests, local dynasties, and regional merchant layers continued the same logic. The southern Red Sea demanded presence, patience, and knowledge of the local world. Anyone who observed this space only from above, as a single narrow sea line, would quickly realize that it was shaped by numerous small coasts, a multitude of seasonal habits, and the resistance of local networks.
Bab al-Mandab has therefore long demonstrated one enduring truth of geopolitics. Places that look like simple passages in practice require deep immersion in social and maritime life. Without that, every grand strategy remains empty.
The Portuguese at the gates of the Indian Ocean
In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, European maritime expansion brought new drama to the area around Bab al-Mandab. After sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal tried to turn the Indian Ocean into a system controlled by force, fortresses, and patrols. In that vision, the southern entrance to the Red Sea became especially important. Whoever could control Bab al-Mandab could strike at the old Muslim trading networks and pressure the routes toward Egypt and the Levant.
The Portuguese therefore tried to militarize the approaches, relying on strongholds such as Socotra and on periodic patrols. They expected that firepower and oceanic initiative would bring lasting dominance. Bab al-Mandab, however, met them with a different logic. Here power and trade were sustained through a multitude of ports, anchorages, local connections, and adaptation to the winds, so firm domination from a distance could not easily take root.
Regional traders continued to live in that sea, and Portuguese power remained limited. This episode carries a great lesson for the whole later history of the strait. Technological advantage can make a strong impression, but lasting control requires long-term infrastructure and political rooting in the space. Bab al-Mandab, even then, showed resistance to simple imperial recipes.
For the history of the strait, this is an important moment, because for the first time a global horizon becomes more clearly visible. Here it is no longer only regional kingdoms and coastal ports that collide. Here two models of the world collide — the old world of networked coasts and the new world of oceanic cannons.
Perim, coal, and the British century
The 19th century opened a completely new chapter. With the arrival of the steamship, the sea no longer belonged only to the wind. Industrial shipping needed fuel, technical supply points, signal stations, and a regular schedule. In this new maritime economy, the island of Perim gained enormous importance. The British recognized early that the passage to India needed support precisely at this point.
The brief British presence at the end of the 18th century was only a prelude, and the lasting importance of Perim took shape after 1857. At that point the island entered the British imperial infrastructure as a coaling station, a lighthouse and signal point, a logistical support for steamships passing toward Aden, India, and further into Asia. Thereby Bab al-Mandab entered, for the first time, a fully modern network of maritime maintenance.
In the British order, the sea became more precisely measured, and travel time acquired an almost industrial value. The old world of monsoon patience and local waiting retreated before the new imperial rhythm. Now a ship had to arrive on schedule, fuel had to be available, the signal had to be clear, and the passage had to remain open. Bab al-Mandab was no longer just part of the historical trade geography. It became part of the engine room of empire.
1869 — the year the sea got a new axis
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 changed the geometry of world trade. Until then, Bab al-Mandab belonged to the great trading network through the Red Sea, but after Suez it became the southern valve of the shortest maritime link between Europe and Asia. The difference was tectonic and civilizational. What had previously functioned in stages now turned into an uninterrupted corridor.
In this new axis, the Mediterranean, Suez, the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, and the Indian Ocean form a single whole. The strait suddenly no longer serves only regional ports, pilgrimage routes, and intermediate steps of Indian Ocean trade. It becomes an obligatory point of a global artery. The steamship, insurance, canal fees, sailing schedules, and ever-growing traffic of goods reinforced its weight.
For the local coasts, this change was ambiguous. Part of the old intermediary wealth began to weaken, because the global system demanded fast passage more than delay. Cities that had lived for centuries off transshipment and regional mediation had to adapt to the new economy of speed. Some lost their old shine, others found new roles, and Bab al-Mandab increasingly and firmly took on the role of a chokepoint of world trade.
From that moment on, the history of the strait cannot be understood without Suez. All the major changes at the northern end of the canal echo at the southern entrance of the Red Sea, and every crisis at Bab al-Mandab strikes Egypt, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Asian routes as well. The sea got a new axis, and that arc has remained active to this day. Indeed, one might say it is more important today than ever.
A century of tankers and military flags
The 20th century brought a new kind of cargo through Bab al-Mandab and a new level of strategic nervousness. Oil became the bloodstream of the industrial world, and maritime traffic grew ever denser and more expensive. Later, containers and liquefied gas joined, along with enormous tankers. The strait now stood in the path of goods that feed entire continents.
Such density of traffic brought with it a density of security infrastructure. Separated traffic lanes, modern navigation regimes, and military presence became an integral part of the daily life of the passage. Any serious disruption threatened to spread far beyond the region. The maritime map here became both an energy map and a military one.
The conflict between Eritrea and Yemen over the Hanish Islands in the mid-1990s showed how much weight the island spaces around the strait still carry. The dispute ended in arbitration that drew demarcation lines, while at the same time preserving traditional fishing rights.
The Cold War, regional wars, great-power rivalry, and the growth of energy traffic made Bab al-Mandab one of those points where geopolitics no longer resides only in offices and headquarters. It sails on tankers, stands at coastal radar points, and enters the daily life of fishermen who watch the flags of powerful states on the horizon.
Life along coasts that look at each other
From the height of a satellite map, Bab al-Mandab looks like a sharp dividing line. At the level of life, it has long acted as a space of contact. The coasts of Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea have lived for centuries through maritime proximity, fishing customs, small trading circles, pilgrimage routes, and family ties. The linguistic picture of this space has always been layered, with Afar, Somali, Arabic, and other forms of coastal life that do not fit easily into later state borders.
On Yemen’s Tihama coast, around Al-Mukha and Dhubab, fishing shaped the rhythm of numerous poor households that lived along the coast and from it. In Djibouti, artisanal fishing has remained important for local supply, and on the Eritrean coasts and islands, the sea for centuries fed small communities that lived in the shadow of larger maritime flows. In such areas, the passage of large ships creates an odd sight. A few miles from small wooden vessels pass tankers whose cargo is worth more than the annual income of entire coastal regions.
Maritime custom has often been sturdier than political change. A fisherman knows where the waters are good for a catch, which island shadows offer shelter, and where the borders on paper differ from the borders in experience. That is why the arbitration over the Hanish Islands, which recognized traditional fishing rights, had almost anthropological importance. It confirmed that the sea here is at once an international space and a working landscape.
Through this social lens, Bab al-Mandab acquires a human face. It stops being merely a point on the route between Europe and Asia and becomes a place where children grow up amid the smell of nets, where boats are repaired by hand…
Coral and the quiet work of the sea
In contemporary discussion, the strait is often reduced to traffic and war, yet the natural history of the area is equally fascinating. The southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden join two different marine regimes. The Red Sea is markedly salty, warm, and in many parts poor in nutrients, while the Gulf of Aden, influenced by the upwelling of deeper waters, has different productivity. Bab al-Mandab is the valve that links these two systems.
This exchange of waters has far-reaching consequences. The summer influx of water from the Gulf of Aden into the southern part of the Red Sea brings nutrients that feed biological activity and occasional phytoplankton blooms. Coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass meadows depend on a delicate balance of heat, salinity, currents, and coastal stability. The sea around the strait therefore lives in a complex rhythm that can be disrupted by war and climate change alike, but also by careless management.
On these coasts, the coral world and poor human settlements often share the same fragility. An oil incident, a major shipwreck, coastal pollution, overfishing, or prolonged wartime chaos leave a mark that lasts far longer than the news of the event itself. When the world talks about the safety of shipping, it usually means cargo, insurance, and military escorts. The nature of Bab al-Mandab reminds us that safety has another face too — the ecological and biological one.
The Houthis and the return of old geography
Since November 2023, the world has once again spoken about Bab al-Mandab almost daily. The Houthis, or the Ansar Allah movement from Yemen, have turned the southern entrance to the Red Sea into a space of constant risk through attacks on merchant ships, rocket fire, the use of drones, and the threat of a broader closure of the passage. In the first wave of this campaign, much of it looked like a shock to the world public, but the history of this strait shows that such episodes always revive an old truth. Whoever can produce insecurity in a narrow passage gains a geopolitical lever far greater than their formal strength.
Contemporary attacks developed quickly. At first, missiles and unmanned aircraft dominated, and later more complex patterns appeared, including small boats, improvised sea drones, and combined attacks. The hijacking of the ship Galaxy Leader in late 2023 became a symbol of the initial phase of the crisis, and the summer of 2025 brought a new escalation through attacks on ships such as Magic Seas and Eternity C, which showed how wide the spectrum of threats can be in such a cramped maritime space.
About the Author
Mario Hoffmann is an independent analyst and writer covering global economics, geopolitics, and international affairs. With a background in history and politics, he writes for EconoPuls to provide in-depth context on the stories shaping our world.
