Yemeni Government Urges Traders to Use Aden Port After the Houthi Re-designation as a Terrorist Group
Yemen Monitor/Newsroom:
The Yemeni government on Friday called on all traders, importers, commercial companies, and shipping lines to resume operations at the port of Aden and other “liberated” ports.
In a statement, the Yemeni Ministry of Transport said it would provide all necessary facilities and overcome any difficulties faced by traders.
The ministry affirmed that “the conflict ignited by the Houthi group through targeting international shipping lanes, serving Iran’s objectives, has significantly impacted the movement of ships in international sea lanes and waterways, in addition to its catastrophic repercussions on the country.”
The ministry called on the Arab coalition and the international community to stop the Houthis from extorting traders and importers through Aden ports and liberated areas at border checkpoints, forcing them to pay 100% customs and taxes, and to work to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.
The Yemeni government’s call comes in conjunction with US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Wednesday to sign an executive order re-designating the Houthis in Yemen as a “foreign terrorist organization,” a designation he had signed before the end of his first term and was later revoked by former President Joe Biden in 2021, before classifying them as a “specially designated global terrorist” the following year, a less stringent designation that allows humanitarian aid to enter Yemen.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Bakaei said the decision, which includes imposing harsher economic sanctions than those imposed by Biden’s administration on the Houthis, is a “pretext for imposing inhumane sanctions on the Yemeni people.”
The Houthi group has carried out more than 100 attacks on ships traversing the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they are doing so in support of Palestinians in the war of annihilation waged by Israel against them in the Gaza Strip.
The attacks resulted in the sinking of two ships and the killing of at least four sailors. The group also seized a ship, and the attacks disrupted global shipping, forcing companies to reroute their vessels on longer and more costly journeys around South Africa for more than a year.
The executive order issued by Trump stated that the Houthis “have launched numerous attacks on civilian infrastructure, including multiple attacks on civilian airports in Saudi Arabia,” in addition to launching “more than 300 projectiles at Israel since October 2023.”
