Official Yemen War Thread: Famine, Cholera, & Destruction :francis:

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Yemen separatists seize remote Socotra island from Saudi-backed government

Mohammed Mukhashaf
3 MIN READ

ADEN (Reuters) - Southern separatists have seized control of Yemen’s island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea, deposing its governor and driving out forces of the Saudi-backed government which condemned the action as coup.

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) declared self rule in the south in April, complicating U.N. efforts to forge a permanent ceasefire in a war that has separatists and the government fighting as nominal allies in a Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi group, who control the north.

On Saturday, the STC announced it had seized government facilities and military bases on the main island of Socotra, a sparsely populated archipelago which sits at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden on one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The government which is led by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi condemned the action as a “full-fledged” coup on the island and accused STC forces of attacking government buildings in “gang-style behaviour”.


Socotra governor Ramzi Mahroos accused coalition leaders Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of turning a blind eye. The UAE has previously backed STC forces with air strikes in fighting against the government in the south.

The coalition’s Saudi spokesman and the UAE foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Sources told Reuters last week that Saudi Arabia, which has tried to broker a deal between the STC and Hadi’s government, had presented a proposal to end the separatist stand-off, but the STC subsequently denied receiving it.

Riyadh wants to prevent another front developing in Yemen’s multifaceted war, which has been locked in military stalemate for years.


The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Iran-aligned Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government for power in the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system.

Socotra, a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its unique fauna and flora, is located in the shipping lane linking Asia to the Europe via the Red sea and Suez Canal.
 
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Yemen's government and southern separatist forces have agreed to a ceasefire and will begin talks on implementing an earlier peace agreement, according to a Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthi rebels.

The former coalition allies on Monday agreed to a ceasefire in Abyan province - a major hotspot of clashes - and the de-escalation of tensions in other regions.

The self-styled Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi also agreed to hold a meeting on implementing a 2019 Riyadh agreement involving committees from both sides, coalition Spokesman Turki al-Malki said in a statement carried by official Saudi Press Agency.

Tensions between the two former allies in Yemen's long-running war have grown since April, when the United Arab Emirates-backed STC unilaterally announced self-rule in areas under its control in Yemen.

The STC fighters were the on-the-ground allies of the UAE, once Saudi Arabia's main coalition partner in its military campaign against the Houthis, who control vast swaths of territory in Yemen's north.

Yemen: UAE-backed separatists take control of Socotra (2:44)
Friction escalated on Saturday after forces loyal to the STC assumed control of the strategically located island of Socotra.

The STC, which raises the flag of the former communist state in the south and has pushed to again split the war-torn country in two, seized several state buildings in the island's capital, Habidouh, including the governor's headquarters.

The internationally recognised government accused the STC of staging "a full-fledged coup" in Socotra, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

"The coalition regrets the latest developments in a number of southern provinces and calls on the parties to prioritize Yemen's national interest ... and to stop bloodletting," the coalition's al-Malki said in Monday's statement.

Elisabeth Kendall, a senior fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University, described the ceasefire announcement as "a very good start" to avoid de-escalation after a "very active weekend" that saw the STC "flexing its muscles" with the Socotra takeover and by organising rallies elsewhere.

"There might be a new dynamic developing. It certainty looks like there are signs that Saudi Arabia is tiring of the war in Yemen," she told Al Jazeera from London.

"[The war] hasn't been working for five years. It's very expensive and a virus is spreading so it could be that it is now recognising the STC as a genuine military as well as administrative presence on the ground in the south and is therefore stepping over the head of the Hadi government in order to broker some kind of deal which allows it to step back a little."

INSIDE STORY: Why have southern Yemen separatists seized Socotra? (25:25)

The STC turned on Hadi in August last year and took control of Aden, the internationally-recognised government's temporary seat. The fighting stopped when the two groups in November 2019 reached the Riyadh deal with the objective of forming a unity government, but clashes continued in the ensuing months.

Yemen's south was an independent state until the 1990 unification with the north.

The country's latest conflict broke out in late 2014 when the Houthis seized much of the country and removed Hadi's government from the capital, Sanaa.

Fighting escalated in March 2015 when the Saudi-UAE-led military alliance launched a fierce air campaign against the rebels in a bid to restore Hadi's government.

Since then, the war has killed more than an estimated 100,000 people and displaced millions, pushing the impoverished country to the verge of famine and gutting its infrastructure.
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