Houthis take Mokha, the Red Sea town that sits on Bab el-Mandeb

Houthi forces have taken the Red Sea port city of Mokha, Yemeni and regional outlets reported on Thursday, after government units fell back from Hays and Al Khawkhah and civilians moved toward Aden.

Sky News Arabia described the capture of Mokha and the retreat from the two districts. The New York Times, later on Thursday, said the Iran-aligned movement had routed government forces in Mokha and improved its position for attacks on ships in the strait. Four Yemeni government officers had told Reuters a day earlier that the Houthis were already close to control of Mokha and Dhubab, the pair of towns that look onto Bab el-Mandeb.

The new fact is the fall of the city itself and the civilian movement south. Saudi aircraft have been striking Taiz, Hodeidah, Jawf, Marib and Saada through the same window. Those raids have not reversed the coastal advance.

Mokha sits on the eastern shore of the strait that joins the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. A large share of Europe-Asia container traffic and a slice of global oil still use that gap when carriers are not diverting around the Cape. Houthi attacks on merchant ships since late 2023 already pushed many owners onto the longer route. Holding Mokha and pressing Dhubab puts launch points and coastal radar closer to the traffic lane.

The capture lands inside the wider U.S.-Iran war. Washington sank five Iranian tankers this week. Tehran said it hit ten ships near Hormuz. Brent settled above $100. A second closed or harassed chokepoint behind Hormuz is the scenario shipowners price when they buy war risk for the Red Sea. Pakistan this week told Iran to restrain the Houthis. Iran replied that it does not control them.

Yemen's war has layered sponsors for a decade. The Houthis hold Sanaa and the northern highlands. The recognised government and its southern allies hold fragments of the Red Sea coast and the east. Mokha was one of the remaining government footholds on that coast. Losing it shrinks the ground from which any anti-Houthi force could police the strait without flying every sortie from Saudi bases or from ships offshore.

The mass movement toward Aden is the immediate human fact. Families leaving Hays, Al Khawkhah and Mokha are adding to a city that has taken displaced people through every phase of the war. Aid agencies will now have to count that column. The military fact is simpler. The force that already fires at tankers from the northern Red Sea now holds the port that sits on the strait's eastern door.

Dhubab is the next named town on that shore. If it follows Mokha, the Houthi coastline on Bab el-Mandeb becomes continuous. That is the line carriers, insurers and navies will watch through the rest of the week, while oil stays above $100 and the Iran war supplies the wider frame.

Mokha's older fame is coffee. Its present value is geography. The town and Dhubab together bracket the eastern approaches. Government officers who spoke to Reuters on Wednesday were already treating the pair as a single military problem. Thursday's reports say one half of that pair has fallen.

Aden is a crowded destination for people leaving the Red Sea towns. The city's hospitals and shelters will register the arrival before any ministry in exile publishes a displacement table. That table, when it comes, will be the first hard count of what the capture of Mokha cost on land, as distinct from what it costs in the insurance market for ships still using the strait.