Kamaran Islands

Kamaran lies in the shallow Red Sea off the Tihama coast, near the port of al-Hudaydah. The island is mostly flat and dry, with coral reefs around much of its shore. In 1513 Afonso de Albuquerque's Portuguese fleet spent three months here after an unsuccessful attack on Aden, suffering shortages and disease. The island's position made it useful to forces operating along the Yemeni coast: in 1625 the Ottoman garrison of Hudaydah withdrew to Kamaran before the advance of the Zaydi imam.