# The gate of tears reopens in Yemen

> A fast Houthi push along the Red Sea coast has emptied villages and put the world's busiest chokepoint back in play.
- Title: The gate of tears reopens in Yemen · the Guardian | Shortify
- Summary: A fast Houthi push along the Red Sea coast has emptied villages and put the world's busiest chokepoint back in play. Yemen's civilians are paying the price…
- Keywords: yemen, houthis, red sea, displacement, shipping, news, world, gate, tears, reopens, the Guardian
- Source: the Guardian — https://theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/12/yemen-houthi-advance-red-sea-coast-displaces-civilians-bab-al-mandab
- Published: 2026-09-12T04:00:24+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: yemen, houthis, red sea, displacement, shipping, news, world
## Fifty thousand people gone
Aid workers count nearly 50,000 Yemenis displaced by a sudden Houthi advance in the west. Entire villages are empty, and families stuck near the front are running out of food.
## A lightning advance
Iran-backed Houthi fighters took a string of Red Sea coastal towns this week from US- and Saudi-backed government forces. Hundreds are reported killed.
## Fleeing for the third time
The IOM puts 46,000 displaced across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates. For many families it is the second or third time they have been pushed out of their homes.

> The scale of displacement is increasing rapidly
## Roads cut, phones down
Fighting has severed key roads and knocked out phone lines in places. People need shelter, cash, food, water, healthcare and protection, and most arrived with almost nothing.

> Civilians are bearing the brunt of renewed frontline warfare, airstrikes, shelling, and large-scale displacement
## Mocha falls
The strategic port city, birthplace of the global coffee trade, went down fast. One man who slipped out at night described an apocalyptic atmosphere.

> looting by gangs as they tried to flee
## Washington looked the other way
For two decades the US ran drone strikes on al-Qaida in Yemen while paying little attention to the Houthis, until the group seized the capital in 2014.
## Why the coast matters
Seizing coastal towns and offshore islands puts the Houthis within reach of Bab al-Mandab, the 20-mile strait linking Asia to Europe. Its name means the gate of tears.
## A hundred dollars a barrel
Close the chokepoint and ships reroute around southern Africa, adding thousands of nautical miles. Oil has already climbed past $100 from around $80 weeks earlier.
## The truce is over
This is the worst violence since the UN-brokered peace of 2022. The UN envoy told an emergency Security Council meeting that Yemen has entered a new and more dangerous phase.

> This renewed war should alarm us all
## Everyone else's proxy war
Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE have long fought their battles through Yemen, and the failure to end the violence grew powerful militias. The US-Israeli war on Iran has raised the temperature further.
## Half a country going hungry
Of 40 million people, roughly half face acute food insecurity, and malnutrition is deepening. Aid funding is falling just as the need spikes.

> It's a catastrophe, and the attacks are ongoing
## Key takeaway

Yemen's civilians are paying the price for a fight over 20 miles of water that the global economy runs through.