By Al-Fassel | 2026-06-10

Every day, ships pass through Yemen's Red Sea ports carrying the food and fuel that millions of people depend on to survive.

Those same ports are quietly filling Houthi war coffers at the direct expense of ordinary Yemeni families.

The Yemen-based Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative tracked $789 million in Houthi customs revenues at Hodeidah, al-Salif and Ras Issa between May 2023 and June 2024.

That figure covers only what investigators could document, and independent experts believe the real total is far higher.

An internationally recognized government committee of experts estimated the group generates roughly $1.8 billion in total revenues each year.

The question ordinary Yemenis are asking is simple and devastating: where is all this money going?

The answer lies in Tehran, where the Iranian regime views the Houthi movement as an indispensable regional weapon.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) supplies the group with missiles, drones and military training, according to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Up to 80 percent of Yemen's imports pass through Hodeidah and al-Salif, granting the group a powerful economic stranglehold over the entire country.

Yemenis suffer

According to a November 2024 UN Panel report, the Houthis ran a shadow tolling scheme on Red Sea shipping lanes, extracting about $180 million monthly.

Ordinary Yemeni civilians are paying a punishing double price for the movement's regional ambitions.

Shipping companies have imposed surcharges up to $500 per 20-foot container, costs passed to consumers in Yemen, which imports over 90 percent of its food.

The World Food Program reported in 2026 that 63 percent of Yemeni households struggle to meet minimum food needs, including 36 percent facing severe deprivation.

The UN Security Council confirmed that 18 million Yemenis, or 52 percent of the population, face crisis-level food insecurity.

It ranks Yemen among the world's most food-insecure countries, surpassed only by South Sudan and Somalia.

Financial corruption extends far beyond port operations, with the Houthis seizing businesses and locking citizens out of savings, collapsing much of Yemen's pre-war private sector.

In June 2025, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed its largest sanctions yet against the Houthis' revenue networks.

While sanctions are necessary, they alone cannot reverse a decade of deliberate plunder financed through Yemeni suffering and systemic economic exploitation.

Billions continue flowing through Hodeidah's ports not to rebuild Yemen, but to fund a movement that weaponizes the suffering of its own population.