Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Monday declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia effective immediately, their military spokesperson said in a televised speech.
The militant group announced “a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye’ effective immediately upon the issuance of this statement.”
The Houthis said the blockade was in response to Saudi Arabia’s continued “unjust and oppressive siege on our dear people for nearly 12 years, plundering our resources and imposing a comprehensive blockade on our ports and airports by land, sea, and air.”
The group fired missiles at Saudi Arabia last week after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under their control, breaking a four-year truce in the conflict between the kingdom and the Iran-aligned group.
The strikes were the first claimed by the Houthis against Saudi Arabia since an informal truce went into effect in March 2022 following Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure.
(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Nadine Awadalla, Aidan Lewis)