In a September 2026 territorial advance that has upended regional geopolitics, the Iran-aligned Houthi armed movement has seized key Red Sea territory previously held by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, bringing new strategic risks to global trade and coastal African nations. The group now controls the port of Mocha, Mayyun Island, and the Zuqar and Hanish archipelagos, all located roughly 160 kilometers north of the strategically critical Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
The Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a just 32-kilometer-wide maritime chokepoint sitting between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, forms the only direct connection between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean. The waterway, divided by Houthi-held Mayyun Island, carries roughly 12% of all global trade annually, making its security foundational to international commercial activity. While the Houthi advance has not seized control of the strait’s African shoreline, the group’s expanded territorial footprint carries profound economic and security consequences for all Red Sea-adjacent African states, and carries the potential to exacerbate already simmering conflicts in Somalia and Sudan.
As a scholar with more than 20 years of research focused on global maritime geopolitics and Red Sea security, I argue that the Houthi threat extends far beyond minor logistical disruptions to shipping. It poses a fundamental strategic risk to all African states bordering the Red Sea. Houthi armed outposts now ring the northern stretches of the strait, placing the group’s offensive capabilities within striking distance of the world’s busiest commercial shipping corridor. The Iran-aligned non-state actor can now plausibly deploy missiles, naval mines, and fast-attack craft across a large stretch of the eastern Red Sea coastline. This development comes alongside Iran’s longstanding ability to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, another critical global energy chokepoint, creating the very real risk of simultaneous disruptions at two key maritime bottlenecks that could leave commercial shipping with no safe passage through the Red Sea.
### The Economic and Security Risks for African Nations
Disruptions to Red Sea shipping undermine African economies through four key channels: rising shipping and insurance premiums, lost port revenue, increased energy and food commodity prices, and growing maritime security threats.
Egypt faces the largest immediate financial exposure. In 2024, Houthi attacks on commercial shipping already cut Red Sea traffic, costing the Egyptian government an estimated $7 billion in lost Suez Canal revenue. While fiscal 2025-26 saw canal revenue rise 23% to $4.67 billion, a sustained trend of shipping diversion away from the Red Sea would quickly erase this recovery.
For Djibouti, the crisis has brought both a growing humanitarian displacement crisis and economic vulnerability. Since the Houthi escalation in early September 2026, nearly 142,000 people have been displaced by renewed fighting, more than 3,700 of whom have fled across the Red Sea to northern Djibouti. Djibouti also serves as the primary trade gateway for landlocked Ethiopia, which handles 95% of all its international trade through Djibouti’s ports, leaving Ethiopia’s economy heavily exposed to any Red Sea disruptions. Eritrea, meanwhile, faces its own security risks: its strategic Red Sea coastline has made it a focal point for Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which are keen to prevent expanded Iranian and Houthi influence on the strait’s African shore.
The Houthi crisis has also compounded existing instability in Somalia and Sudan. The Houthi movement has exchanged weapons, drone technology, and tactical training with al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist group operating in Somalia, in exchange for support for pirate operations off Somalia’s coast. Even as the African Union’s counter-terrorism mission works to contain al-Shabaab, pirate attacks off Somalia’s coast have already jumped to a 10-year high in 2026, prompting the Somali government to approve a new anti-piracy law in September 2026 to curb maritime kidnappings.
In Sudan, which remains mired in a civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the United Arab Emirates-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Houthi advance has deepened foreign entanglement. Iran has provided military support to factions of the SAF, and by mid-2024, the Houthis were assisting Iran in funneling weapons to Sudanese government forces. This connection has already led to U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting key Sudanese figures with ties to Iranian military networks. The uncomfortable reality that emerges is that the African shoreline of the Red Sea is not only exposed to Houthi influence, but has already begun to act as a supporting base for the group’s operations.
### Broader Geopolitical Competition Over the Red Sea
Current shifts in Red Sea geopolitics did not begin with the 2026 Houthi advance. Tensions have been building for years, with competing regional blocs vying for influence over the strategic waterway.
In January 2024, Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, securing access to the region’s Red Sea coastline and permission to build a naval base in exchange for recognizing Somaliland’s independence. The deal drew immediate opposition from Somalia, Eritrea, and Egypt, which formed a joint security mechanism to coordinate their response within a year. Regional security cooperation accelerated after that, with Saudi Arabia hosting talks in July 2026 that brought 14 countries including Egypt, Djibouti, Sudan, and Somalia together to launch the Multinational Maritime Defence Alliance. Notably, the UAE and Ethiopia were excluded from the alliance following December 2025 clashes between UAE-aligned and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen.
A competing alignment has since emerged, bringing together the UAE, Israel, and Ethiopia, a bloc strengthened by Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland in December 2025. This bloc stands opposed to the coalition of Somalia, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Iran, for its part, has actively sought a permanent military foothold along the Red Sea corridor, including in Sudan, while Eritrea has leveraged its control of strategic coastline to boost its regional influence and counterbalance Ethiopia. The end result is an increasingly sharp contest for regional influence, with Middle Eastern powers increasingly leveraging Africa’s strategic geographic position to advance their own geopolitical goals.
### Pathways to Mitigating Risk
No single African state has the capacity to secure the entire Bab al-Mandeb Strait on its own, but governments can reduce their exposure by diversifying port access and developing alternative inland trade routes. The most impactful step, however, is expanding collective maritime security capacity at the regional level. In August 2026, signatory states to the Djibouti Code of Conduct and its expanded Jeddah Amendment committed to forming a combined regional task force to counter piracy and maritime insecurity. The success of this initiative will depend on member states’ ability to commit the necessary ships, intelligence, personnel, and legal frameworks to build a fully functional security mechanism.
While African states are not currently setting the broader strategic agenda for the Red Sea, their control of the region’s chokepoints gives them significant new diplomatic leverage. The core challenge for these nations is to use that leverage to advance their own national interests, without becoming drawn in as proxies in a wider Middle Eastern confrontation.
*This analysis is by Burak Şakir Şeker, associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, republished with permission from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.*