Why Is The Gate Of Tears Important?

The Gate of Tears is a Strait in a politically sensitive area – the Red Sea. The Strait is a narrow constriction between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Smaller ships do not therefore need to make the considerably longer voyage around The Cape of Good Hope. An important proportion of the world’s trade passes through the Strait, which has Djibouti and Eritrea on one side and the Republic of Yemen on the other, with Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia nearby. Hundreds of thousands of tons of crude oil pass through the Strait each day .

The Gate of Tears, known in Arabic as Bab el Mandeb (there are various spellings) has been a conduit for trade for many centuries. Its name is said to derive from the navigational difficulties and the many lives that have been lost there over thousands of years; alternatively, legend has it that it was given its name following the deaths of large numbers of people when the catastrophic earthquake that split Africa from Asia occurred. The Gates of Grief is another translation of the name.

The Strait is almost twenty miles in width, and divided in two by Perim Island (also known as Mayyun), a volcanic rock 65 m high which belongs now to the Republic of Yemen. In the fairly recent geological past, volcanic eruptions from Perim are believed to have blocked this entrance to the Red Sea and led to it evaporating on several occasions. The Biblical stories are very interesting in this context.

Bab al Mendab comprises two channels – the easternmost channel, Bab Iskander (Alexander’s Channel), is about 2 miles wide and 30 metres deep. The Dact el Mayyun (the western channel), is about 16 miles wide and 310 metres deep. However, the largest oil tankers are restricted to traffic lanes 2 miles wide as part of the Traffic Separation Scheme in the Dact el Mayyun.

The strategic significance of the Gate of Tears has increased since Saudi Arabia constructed an East-West oil pipeline. This was done so that Saudi Arabian oil could be transported through the Red Sea, decreasing the dependency on the Straits of Hormuz (2 miles wide), which are the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Any closure – physical or military – of the Gate of Tears would lead to oil exports being transported only via smaller tankers which could pass through the Suez canal; there is also an oil pipeline known as ‘Sumed’, to the Mediterranean.

The Strait also has significance stretching back to the origins of modern man himself. The current Recent Single Origin Hypothesis proposes that earliest anatomically modern man (that’s us) migrated across the Strait from their place of origin in the Great Rift Valley, about 60,000 years ago.

The Strait also has religious significance, with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church believing that early semitic language migrated into Africa across the Strait.

Recently, a company controlled by Tarek Bin Laden has proposed a plan to build a bridge across the Strait, linking Yemen and Djibouti. It would count as one the world’s longest suspension bridges. The suggested name is ‘The Bridge of Horns’.

About the Author

Find out more about the novel
‘Gate of Tears’
– intriguing futuristic blend of piracy, terrorism, gold fever, geopolitics and naval confrontation and visit
www.jamesmarinero.com
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