Yemenis Flee by Boat as Middle East War Threatens Oil Routes

Yemenis are taking to boats across the Red Sea to escape fighting between Iran-backed Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed forces, as the widening Middle East war creates fresh risks for global oil supplies.

Ahmad Hassan, 70, reached Africa in a crowded boat and described the journey in an interview with the International Organization for Migration. "The sea was wavy. The children were getting seasick; everyone... is not used to the sea," he said. He had left his village after Houthi fighters arrived and it came under airstrikes. "The longer we stayed, the worse things got, the shops closed and there was no more food to buy."

The IOM says more than 100,000 Yemenis have been displaced by the latest fighting, most of them within Yemen.

Houthi-controlled television reported fresh Saudi air strikes on Thursday in Hajjah province, near the Saudi border and the Red Sea coast, and in the vicinity of Taiz further inland to the south. The Houthis, who have seized Yemen's entire Red Sea coast since last week in a lightning advance, say the Saudi Air Force has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in recent days. They have in turn fired missiles and drones at targets across the border.

On Wednesday, the Houthis said they had shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet. Video they released overnight showed fighters shouting "Allahu Akbar" in the charred wreckage of a crash site and holding up a piece of a military aircraft wing bearing Saudi insignia.

Oil supply at risk

The spread of the war to Yemen and Saudi Arabia threatens to worsen the global energy shortage caused since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February. Global crude prices have hovered this week between $100 and $110 a barrel, the highest levels since May, and fuel costs for consumers and industry have risen even more sharply. The average retail price of diesel in the United States set a new all-time record on Thursday, just shy of $6.40 a gallon.

U.S. President Donald Trump has so far rebuffed Saudi pleas for military support against the Houthis, who agreed a ceasefire with the United States last year after Washington bombed the group for two months. "Well, hopefully we are towards the end of the war," Trump told reporters on Wednesday. He said the Iranians "want to make a deal. We'll see how that works out."

No negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war have been held since an interim agreement reached in June collapsed within weeks.

The U.S. Navy is trying to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the outlet to the Gulf along Iran's coast, where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas passed before the war, and is also imposing a blockade of Iranian ports. Iran says the strait is closed and will remain shut until Washington lifts the blockade. It is seeking an agreement with neighbouring Gulf states that would let it collect fees from ships passing through the strait.

War in Yemen and attacks on Saudi Arabia have jeopardised the main alternative route for Gulf oil, with the Houthis capturing the Red Sea coast and islands inside the Bab el-Mandeb, or "Gate of Tears", the strait at its mouth. Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, which allowed it to pump oil across the Arabian Peninsula and ship it from the Red Sea, has been shut since it was struck last week in an attack Riyadh said came from Iraq, where Iran-backed militias also operate.