The attention has been on Hormuz, and it should be - 149 days, 431 ships at anchor. The second route out has been quietly closing at the same time.
The Houthis have announced a maritime embargo on Saudi ports. Shipping operators were warned not to load or discharge cargo at Saudi terminals, with vessels calling there subject to targeting [1].
The group claimed attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities at Jizan and Yanbu on Saturday [1]. Those claims have not been confirmed by Aramco or by the Saudi government, and should be treated as claims.
What is not a claim is the track record: more than 100 ships attacked between 2023 and 2025 [1].
What is measurable is the traffic. Transits through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait fell to 11 commodity ships on Sunday, the lowest in months [2]. Bab el-Mandeb is the southern gate of the Red Sea - the route cargo uses when it cannot use the Gulf.
Put the two together and the picture is not two separate crises. It is one region with two maritime exits, one shut for five months and the other now being narrowed by a group that has demonstrated it can follow through.
There is a figure circulating that Yanbu handled 92 percent of Saudi seaborne crude exports in June, and that Saudi crude for Asia is rerouting through Suez with exports up 106 percent in the embargo week. Those numbers would sharpen this considerably. This newsroom has not been able to verify them from a fetched source, so they are noted here as unverified and not relied on.
