Yemen\u2019s Houthi movement said on Wednesday, 23 September, that 408 commercial vessels had transited the Bab el-Mandeb Strait between 11 and 21 September. The statement, aired on Houthi-run al-Masirah television and carried by the group-run Saba news agency, split the count as 196 ships heading north toward the Red Sea and 212 heading south toward the Gulf of Aden. The group said daily traffic averaged more than 40 commercial vessels, including container ships, and that international shipping was proceeding \u201cnormally and safely,\u201d except for Saudi vessels, which it said remain under a maritime ban. It added that the latest figure exceeded the 393 commercial vessels it recorded between 1 and 10 September (199 north, 194 south).<\/p>\n
Those numbers have not been independently verified. Ship-tracking firms that publish daily Bab el-Mandeb commodity counts have been printing a different picture: Reuters, citing Kpler, put Monday, 21 September, at 26 commodity vessels, unchanged from Sunday, and Tuesday, 22 September, at 22 (14 toward the Red Sea, eight toward the Gulf of Aden), against a 10-day average of about 26. That Tuesday mix included five Panamax tankers, six Supramax vessels, four Aframax tankers, a Suezmax and a VLCC. Pre-crisis Bab el-Mandeb traffic was on the order of 70 vessels a day in some tracker series. A Houthi claim of \u201cmore than 40 a day\u201d and \u201cnormal and safe\u201d is therefore a political traffic statement, not a substitute for Kpler, Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence or a master\u2019s own passage plan.<\/p>\n
The Wednesday count covers the first 11 days after Houthi forces seized the Red Sea port of Mokha (Mocha) on 10 September and Mayyun (Perim) Island in the strait on 11 September. Greater and Lesser Hanish and the rest of the Yemeni Red Sea coast were reported taken in the same week. The group\u2019s targeting rule has not changed: Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi \/ military spokesman Yahya Saree language since the July Saudi-ship ban has been that traffic is \u201csafe except Saudi.\u201d The United Nations Security Council\u2019s 15-member statement on the night of 18 September condemned Houthi attacks and threats against commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, demanded that the escalation stop, and recalled the arms embargo under resolution 2216. That statement did not reopen a corridor and did not adopt the Houthi traffic figures.<\/p>\n
Independent monthly and weekly series already on the public record sit well below a 40-ship daily claim if the comparison is commodity vessels. Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence\u2019s 18 September Red Sea brief put August Bab el-Mandeb throughput at 1,166 transits and 92.7 million dwt \u2014 up 6 percent year-on-year, but down 14 percent month-on-month in transits and 19 percent in dwt, and still about 49 percent below 2023. Suez Canal August transits were 1,232 ships and 102.4 million dwt, the busiest month since December 2023 and still about 39 percent below pre-crisis. Kpler\u2019s Ampatzidis had recently described daily Bab el-Mandeb commodity traffic in a 26\u201335 range after an earlier 35\u201340 band. A separate Kpler cut after the Mokha\u2013Mayyun week put only five laden vessels carrying Saudi products out of the Red Sea through the strait in seven days, with crude on the route around 3.4 million barrels a day against a 2026 year-to-date average near 4.4 million. Lloyd\u2019s had earlier noted only one Saudi-linked tanker through Bab el-Mandeb since 20 July.<\/p>\n
Methodology matters. The Houthi 408 figure is a group-supplied total for \u201ccommercial vessels,\u201d including container ships, over 11 days (about 37 a day if the arithmetic is taken at face value, or \u201cmore than 40\u201d in the group\u2019s own wording). Kpler\u2019s daily Reuters prints are commodity-vessel snapshots, typically tankers and dry bulk, taken at a fixed time and revised as AIS updates. The two series are not the same census. Operators can hold both facts at once: some box ships have gone back to Suez and Bab el-Mandeb in August and September, and the waterway is not empty \u2014 and the same waterway is still a listed, selective-risk strait whose coastal state on the Yemeni side is now held by the force that has been attacking ships.<\/p>\n
Europe\u2019s protective layer has not caught up with that coastal change. EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in New York on Monday, 21 September, that Operation Aspides had been sized for at least 10 warships and that \u201cthe situation is even more grave right now.\u201d Diplomats have said about six Aspides hulls are operating. Kallas\u2019s 19 September letter to the EU-27 asked for more naval and air assets ahead of defence and foreign-ministers meetings. Italy has separately been preparing a national escort through Bab el-Mandeb rather than waiting for Aspides. None of those moves is a general-traffic lane, and none of them adopts the Houthi \u201cnormal and safe\u201d line.<\/p>\n
For owners deciding whether to keep a ship on Suez or send it around the Cape, Wednesday\u2019s Houthi statement is a targeting and communications product, not a hydrographic or insurance all-clear. \u201cSafe except Saudi\u201d is a political exclusion, not a flag-state or class warranty. Hulls with a recent Saudi load, discharge, ownership, management or AIS history that can be read as Saudi-linked remain the explicit exception in the group\u2019s own text. Charterers moving Saudi crude, products or boxes should not treat a 408-ship headline as evidence that the July ban has lapsed. The five-laden-Saudi-product-vessels-in-a-week Kpler cut is the more useful planning number for that subset.<\/p>\n
Container lines that have put selected loops back through Suez \u2014 MSC\u2019s westbound Indusa from 23 September, Gemini\u2019s AE5\/AE11\/AE12\/ME2 moves, COSCO\u2019s first southbound OOCL Portugal<\/em> \u2014 are still running a case-by-case security process. Sea-Intelligence\u2019s September read had more than 25 percent of Asia\u2013Europe capacity back on the Red Sea, with Asia\u2013Mediterranean headhaul around 35 percent and backhaul 50\u201360 percent, and Asia\u2013North Europe still much lower on the headhaul. Spot rates have eased as that capacity has returned. That commercial recovery can coexist with a coastal takeover at Mokha and Mayyun. A 408-ship Houthi count, even if it includes every box ship the group saw on AIS, does not tell a master whether Aspides or a national escort will be on his track, whether a Saudi-linked tanker is in the same TSS, or whether a Houthi battery on Mayyun has a different target set tomorrow.<\/p>\n War-risk, ISPS and crew-nationality limits do not reset on a Houthi press statement. Liberia\u2019s ISPS Level 3 for the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden remains in force. Joint War Committee listed-area language for the Red Sea \/ Gulf of Aden theatre is unchanged by Wednesday\u2019s figures. Italy\u2019s national-escort planning and Kallas\u2019s request for more than 10 Aspides ships are reminders that European protection is still rationed: some flags and some commercial relationships will get a frigate, and many will not. Owners who are not Italian-flag or Italian-owned, and who are not on an Aspides tasking list, should not plan as if a 40-ship daily flow implies a covered transit.<\/p>\n The comparison with Hormuz is useful only as a caution. Hormuz visible commodity traffic has been in single digits on several recent days, with projectile hits continuing \u2014 including Wednesday\u2019s Cape Dao<\/em> casualty off Musandam. Bab el-Mandeb is busier than Hormuz on the Kpler prints. It is not a return to the pre-2023 Red Sea. August\u2019s Lloyd\u2019s dwt figures were still about half of 2023. Daily commodity counts in the low-to-mid 20s are a constrained corridor, not \u201cnormal.\u201d Operators who brief Wednesday\u2019s 408 figure to charterers without the Kpler and Lloyd\u2019s caveats will be briefing a Houthi claim as if it were a traffic report.<\/p>\n Regulas Shipping will keep monitoring Houthi statements against Kpler, Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence and official Red Sea warnings, and will update operators if an independent census confirms a sustained change in Bab el-Mandeb traffic or in the Saudi-linked targeting rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Houthi media said 408 commercial ships crossed Bab el-Mandeb from 11 to 21 September. The claim is unverified; Kpler commodity prints remain in the low-to-mid 20s and the safe-except-Saudi rule still stands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-industry","category-maritime-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":808,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n
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