Bab-el-Mandeb

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The Bab-el-Mandeb (Template:Langx), the Gate of Grief or the Gate of Tears,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> is a strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and by extension the Indian Ocean.

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EtymologyEdit

File:Bab el Mandeb NASA with description.jpg

Satellite photo of Bab-el-Mandeb (with labels)

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 Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa.<ref name="EB 1878, 179">Template:Cite EB9</ref>

HistoryEdit

File:Total petroleum and LNG flows through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in 2014 through 2018 (48671783212).png

Flows of petroleum products and liquefied natural gas through the strait, 2014–2018

Paleo-environmental and tectonic events in the Miocene epoch created the Danakil Isthmus, a land bridge forming a broad connection between Yemen and Ethiopia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> During the last 100,000 years, eustatic sea level fluctuations have led to alternate opening and closing of the straits.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to the recent single origin hypothesis, the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb were probably witness to the earliest migrations of modern humans. 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 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 and the Aksumites.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The British East India Company unilaterally seized the island of Perim in 1799 on behalf of its Indian empire. The government of Britain asserted its ownership in 1857 and erected a lighthouse there in 1861, using it to command the Red Sea and the trade routes through the Suez Canal.<ref name="EB 1878, 179"/> It was used as a coaling station to refuel steamships until 1935 when the reduced use of coal as fuel rendered the operation unprofitable.<ref name="Gavin, p. 291">Gavin, p. 291.</ref>

The British presence continued until 1967 when the island became part of the People's Republic of South Yemen. Before the handover, the British government had put forward before the United Nations a proposal for the island to be internationalized<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Hakim, pp. 17-18">Hakim, pp. 17-18.</ref> as a way to ensure the continued security of passage and navigation in the Bab-el-Mandeb, but this was refused.

Template:Anchor In 2008 a company owned by Tarek bin Laden unveiled plans to build a bridge named Bridge of the Horns across the strait, linking Yemen with Djibouti.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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 routeEdit

The Bab-el-Mandeb acts as a strategic link between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. 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.<ref name="EIA">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:PD-notice</ref> 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 legal concept of transit passage applies to Bab el-Mandeb, although Eritrea (unlike the rest of coastal countries) is not a party to the convention.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes that are critical to global energy security. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is Template:Convert wide at its narrowest point, limiting tanker traffic to two 2-mile-wide channels for inbound and outbound shipments.<ref name="EIA"/><ref name="EB 1878, 179" />

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 Template:Convert of oil passed through the strait per day, out of a world total of about Template:Convert moved by tankers.<ref name="chokepoints">World Oil Transit Chokepoints Template:Webarchive, Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy</ref> 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.<ref name="EIA"/>

GeographyEdit

File:Bab-el-Mandeb Seen From Midchannel (cropped).jpg

Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb with Perim Island in the distance

The distance across is about Template:Convert 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 Template:Convert wide and has a depth of Template:Convert deep, while the western, or Dact-el-Mayun, has a width of Template:Convert and a depth of Template:Convert. 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.<ref name="EB 1878, 179" />

DemographicsEdit

Country	Area (km²)	Population (2016 est.)	Population density (per km²)	Capital	GDP (PPP) $M USD	GDP per capita (PPP) $ USD
Template:Flagicon Yemen	527,829	27,392,779	51.9	Sana'a	$58,202	$2,249
Template:Flagicon Eritrea	117,600	6,380,803	54.3	Asmara	$9.121	$1,314
Template:Flagicon Djibouti	23,200	846,687	36.5	Djibouti City	$3.327	$3,351
Total	668,629	34,620,269	51.8 / km²	Various	$70,650	$1,841
Source:<ref name="factbook">{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation							CitationClass=web }}</ref>