The Bab-el-Mandeb (), the Gate of Grief or the Gate of Tears, is a

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...

between

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

on the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

and

Djibouti Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area ...

and

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

in the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

. It connects the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

to the

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden (; ) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. ...

and by extension the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

Etymology

In "Bab-el-Mandeb", "Bab" means "gate" while "Mandeb" means "lamentation" or "grief". The strait derives its name from the dangers attending its navigation or, according to an Arab legend, from the numbers who were drowned by an earthquake that separated the

from the

History

Paleo-environmental and

tectonic Tectonics ( via Latin ) are the processes that result in the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. The field of ''planetary tectonics'' extends the concept to other planets and moons. These processes ...

events in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

epoch created the Danakil Isthmus, a land bridge forming a broad connection between Yemen and Ethiopia. During the last 100,000 years, eustatic sea level fluctuations have led to alternate opening and closing of the straits. According to the recent single origin hypothesis, the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb were probably witness to the earliest migrations of

modern humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligen ...

. It is presumed that the oceans were then much lower and the straits were much shallower or dry, which allowed a series of emigrations along the southern coast of Asia. In Arab tradition it is reported that in ancient times Asia and Africa were joined together, until they were split at the Bab-el-Mandeb.

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

associates the name Bab-el-Mandeb with the 6th century crossing of the Aksumites over the sea to Yemen. Two Sabaean inscriptions of the early 6th century mention ''silsilat al-Mandab'' in connection with the conflict between

Dhu Nuwas Dhū Nuwās (), real name Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar ( Musnad: 𐩺𐩥𐩪𐩰 𐩱𐩪𐩱𐩧 𐩺𐩻𐩱𐩧, ''Yws¹f ʾs¹ʾr Yṯʾr''), Yosef Nu'as (), or Yūsuf ibn Sharhabil (), also known as Masruq in Syriac, and Dounaas () in Medieval G ...

and the Aksumites. The

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

unilaterally seized the island of Perim in 1799 on behalf of its Indian empire. The government of

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

asserted its ownership in 1857 and erected a lighthouse there in 1861, using it to command the

and the trade routes through the Suez Canal. It was used as a coaling station to refuel steamships until 1935 when the reduced use of coal as fuel rendered the operation unprofitable.Gavin, p. 291. The British presence continued until 1967 when the island became part of the

People's Republic of South Yemen South Yemen, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, abbreviated to Democratic Yemen, was a country in South Arabia that existed in what is now southeast Yemen from 1967 until its unification with the Yemen Arab Republic in 199 ...

. Before the handover, the British government had put forward before the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

a proposal for the island to be internationalizedHakim, pp. 17-18. as a way to ensure the continued security of passage and navigation in the Bab-el-Mandeb, but this was refused. In 2008 a company owned by Tarek bin Laden unveiled plans to build a bridge named Bridge of the Horns across the strait, linking

with

. Middle East Development LLC issued a notice to construct a bridge passing across the Red Sea that would be the longest suspended passing in the world. The project was assigned to engineering company COWI in collaboration with architect studio Dissing+Weitling, both from Denmark but the announced delay to Phase 1 in 2010 and the lack of any further updates since makes this a defunct project.

Significance in the maritime trade route

The Bab-el-Mandeb acts as a strategic link between the

and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

via the Red Sea and the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

. Most exports of petroleum and natural gas from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal or the SUMED Pipeline pass through both the Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz. While the narrow width of the strait requires vessels to travel through the territorial sea of adjacent states, under the purview of Article 37 of the

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international treaty that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 169 sov ...

, the legal concept of

transit passage Transit passage is a concept of the law of the sea, which allows a vessel or aircraft the freedom of navigation or overflight solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of a strait between one part of the high seas or exclusive ...

applies to Bab el-Mandeb, although Eritrea (unlike the rest of coastal countries) is not a party to the convention. Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes that are critical to global energy security. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is wide at its narrowest point, limiting tanker traffic to two 2-mile-wide channels for inbound and outbound shipments. Closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could keep tankers originating in the Persian Gulf from transiting the Suez Canal or reaching the SUMED Pipeline, forcing them to divert around the southern tip of Africa, which would increase transit time and shipping costs. In 2006, an estimated of oil passed through the strait per day, out of a world total of about moved by tankers.World Oil Transit Chokepoints
, Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy This rose by 2014 to 5.1 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil, condensate and refined petroleum products headed toward Europe, the United States, and Asia, then an estimated 6.2 million b/d by 2018. Total petroleum flows through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait accounted for about 9% of total seaborne-traded petroleum (crude oil and refined petroleum products) in 2017. About 3.6 million b/d moved north toward Europe; another 2.6 million b/d flowed in the opposite direction mainly to Asian markets such as Singapore, China, and India.

Geography

The distance across is about from Ras Menheli in Yemen to Ras Siyyan in Djibouti. The island of Perim divides the strait into two channels, of which the eastern, known as the Bab Iskender (Alexander's Strait), is wide and has a depth of deep, while the western, or Dact-el-Mayun, has a width of and a depth of . Near the coast of Djibouti lies a group of smaller islands known as the " Seven Brothers". There is a surface current inwards in the eastern channel, but a strong undercurrent outwards in the western channel.

Demographics

Population centers

The most significant towns and cities along both the Djiboutian and Yemeni sides of the Bab-el-Mandeb:

Djibouti

* Khôr ʽAngar * Moulhoule * Fagal

Yemen

* At Turbah * Cheikh Saïd * Perim

References

External links

*
Notice-to-Proceed Launches Ambitious Red Sea Crossing

Sea crossing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bab-El-Mandeb Straits of Asia Straits of Africa Straits of the Indian Ocean Arabian mythology Bodies of water of Yemen Bodies of water of Djibouti Bodies of water of the Red Sea Gulf of Aden Borders of Yemen Borders of Djibouti Borders of Eritrea International straits Djibouti–Eritrea border