Qualla: Bab-el-Mandeb

Bab-el-Mandeb: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name, in Arabic, means Gate of Grief. Twenty-six kilometers of water separate Ras Menheli in Yemen from Ras Siyyan in Djibouti - a narrow doorway where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden and, through the Suez Canal, the rest of the world. About nine percent of the world's seaborne petroleum passed through here in 2017. An earthquake, an Arabic legend says, once separated Asia from Africa here, and all who drowned gave the strait its mournful name. Geologists think the legend is not entirely wrong: the Danakil Isthmus really did form a land bridge between Ethiopia and Yemen in the Miocene, and shallower crossings in the Pleistocene may be how the ancestors of every non-African human on earth first left the continent. Today the Bab-el-Mandeb is a military hot zone, a commercial lifeline, and - as it has been for 100,000 years - a door.

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Image: Unknown author | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bab-el-Mandeb: Where We Came From

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 4.0. According to the recent single origin hypothesis, modern humans emerging from East Africa around 70,000 to 100,000 years ago may have crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb when sea levels were much lower. The strait itself would have been dry, or nearly so. Then, as oceans rose, the crossing...

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Image: Brocken Inaglory | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bab-el-Mandeb: Perim, a Rock in the Middle

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Skilla1st, CC BY-SA 3.0. The strait is not a single channel. The volcanic island of Perim sits in the middle and splits it in two. The eastern passage, Bab Iskender - Alexander's Strait - is narrow, about 5.37 km, and relatively shallow at 16 fathoms. The western passage, Dact-el-Mayun, is wider at 20.3 ...

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Image: Skilla1st | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bab-el-Mandeb: The Oil Door

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Henry de Monfreid, 1914, Public domain. When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, the Bab-el-Mandeb became one of the most important maritime chokepoints on earth. By 2018, about 6.2 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum were passing through every day - 3.6 million barrels moving north to Europe and the United S...

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Image: Henry de Monfreid, 1914 | Public domain

Bab-el-Mandeb: Everyone's Base

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit French magazine L'Illustration, 24 April 1858, Public domain. On the African side, at Djibouti, the military footprint reads like a directory of the international order. The United States took over Camp Lemonnier from France in 2002 - it is now AFRICOM's largest base on the continent. China opened the People's Liberation Army Support Base i...

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Image: French magazine L'Illustration, 24 April 1858 | Public domain

Bab-el-Mandeb: The Red Sea Crisis

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anonymous. Cropped from postcard issued c. 1900, Public domain. After 19 October 2023, following Israel's military operations in Gaza, the Houthis began attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea - ships they claimed were linked to Israel, the United States, or the United Kingdom. Some ships were sunk. The MV Galaxy Leader was boarded and i...

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Image: Anonymous. Cropped from postcard issued c. 1900 | Public domain