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What a strange looking island
As Saudi Arabia and the UAE struggle for control of Socotra, Yemen’s island paradise may just swap one occupation for another
The Independent presents the final article in an exclusive series from Socotra. The Arab coalition united against Yemen’s Houthi rebels has declared the infighting over the Unesco-protected island over: In reality, the supposed alliance is fracturing across Yemen
Monsoon season has almost arrived on the Socotra archipelago.
Overnight on Thursday, the first storm of the year, Cyclone Sagar, began forming over the Gulf of Aden. As the winds picked up to 80kph (50mph) and the water began to churn, fishermen were warned not to take their boats out.
For the next two months, the Arabian Sea will be too dangerous to cross and the isolated Yemeni island will be almost completely cut off from the outside world.
Yemen's Socotra Island, the 'Jewel of Arabia'
The only way on or off the Unesco-protected paradise will be the airstrip. It’s not clear, however, whether any of the three flights a week will run. No one really knows who’s in charge.
In the last two weeks the Arab coalition helping Yemen’s exiled government fight Houthi rebels on the mainland has ruptured in a standoff over geopolitically strategic Socotra. The island’s 60,000 inhabitants have taken to the streets demanding either the removal of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Yemeni government, or independence from both.
The UAE bought tanks and heavy artillery to the island for the first time, and kicked Yemeni workers out of the airstrip and port. The Yemeni government, enraged at the violation of its sovereignty, responded by inviting a Saudi delegation to act as peace broker. The Saudis also brought troops, which appear to have remained.
Yemen’s prime minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr announced on Monday that the “crisis on the island is over” and that Yemen’s flag is “flying above our sea and airports again”. But in conversations with residents, local leaders and activists in Socotra, The Independent has discovered the picture on the ground looks very different.
Our eyewitness report revealed how since Yemen’s war began the UAE has all but annexed Socotra, building a military base, conducting its own census and possibly even holding a Crimea-style referendum.
With Saudi Arabia beginning to assert itself on the island, the Emirates’ quiet ambitions in this part of the world are now being directly challenged.
The island paradise under threat from Yemen’s civil war
A clever blend of Emirati hard and soft power is rapidly changing life for people in Socotra and southern Yemen, as well as Somaliland, Djibouti, Eritrea and Port Sudan – all places which touch the Red Sea, the world’s most important oil and gas shipping channel.
Socotra, the epicentre of this new power struggle, has become the first real challenge for the UAE as it strives to establish a 21st-century military empire to rival Saudi Arabia’s regional dominance.
Socotra now holds the key to the future of the strained Arab coalition and the future of Yemen, a country already coming apart at the seams.
‘We refuse to replace the UAE occupation with a Saudi one’
Ahmed bin Daghr flew to Socotra two weeks ago for a rare visitdesigned to reassert Yemen’s sovereignty over Socotra. Instead, many sources on the island think the prime minister found himself trapped there, subject to the whims of the UAE, which rolled out tanks in a show of military might.
The panicked Yemeni delegation called the Saudis – the keystone of the coalition and main financial backer of the war against the Iran-backed Houthis – to send a mediation committee. Talks over several days after Yemen officially demanded the UAE scale back its military presence did not go well. On 13 May, the Saudis landed another plane, this time carrying armed troops.
“The presence of Saudi troops is alarming,” Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been vocal about the situation on Socotra, told The Independent. “We should not trust these agendas.”
In a Facebook post sent from the safety of the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Thursday, Daghr announced he had finally returned home to the seat of the exiled Yemeni cabinet and that Socotra was safely in Yemeni hands once more.
Pictures have surfaced of Emirati tanks and armoured vehicles being loaded back onto a C-17 military cargo plane. It is not clear whether the Saudi soldiers remain on the island; The Independent's requests for information from Riyadh, Aden and Abu Dhabi have not been answered.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ation-military-emirates-a8360441.html#gallery
As Saudi Arabia and the UAE struggle for control of Socotra, Yemen’s island paradise may just swap one occupation for another
The Independent presents the final article in an exclusive series from Socotra. The Arab coalition united against Yemen’s Houthi rebels has declared the infighting over the Unesco-protected island over: In reality, the supposed alliance is fracturing across Yemen
Monsoon season has almost arrived on the Socotra archipelago.
Overnight on Thursday, the first storm of the year, Cyclone Sagar, began forming over the Gulf of Aden. As the winds picked up to 80kph (50mph) and the water began to churn, fishermen were warned not to take their boats out.
For the next two months, the Arabian Sea will be too dangerous to cross and the isolated Yemeni island will be almost completely cut off from the outside world.
Yemen's Socotra Island, the 'Jewel of Arabia'
The only way on or off the Unesco-protected paradise will be the airstrip. It’s not clear, however, whether any of the three flights a week will run. No one really knows who’s in charge.
In the last two weeks the Arab coalition helping Yemen’s exiled government fight Houthi rebels on the mainland has ruptured in a standoff over geopolitically strategic Socotra. The island’s 60,000 inhabitants have taken to the streets demanding either the removal of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Yemeni government, or independence from both.
The UAE bought tanks and heavy artillery to the island for the first time, and kicked Yemeni workers out of the airstrip and port. The Yemeni government, enraged at the violation of its sovereignty, responded by inviting a Saudi delegation to act as peace broker. The Saudis also brought troops, which appear to have remained.
Yemen’s prime minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr announced on Monday that the “crisis on the island is over” and that Yemen’s flag is “flying above our sea and airports again”. But in conversations with residents, local leaders and activists in Socotra, The Independent has discovered the picture on the ground looks very different.
Our eyewitness report revealed how since Yemen’s war began the UAE has all but annexed Socotra, building a military base, conducting its own census and possibly even holding a Crimea-style referendum.
With Saudi Arabia beginning to assert itself on the island, the Emirates’ quiet ambitions in this part of the world are now being directly challenged.
The island paradise under threat from Yemen’s civil war
A clever blend of Emirati hard and soft power is rapidly changing life for people in Socotra and southern Yemen, as well as Somaliland, Djibouti, Eritrea and Port Sudan – all places which touch the Red Sea, the world’s most important oil and gas shipping channel.
Socotra, the epicentre of this new power struggle, has become the first real challenge for the UAE as it strives to establish a 21st-century military empire to rival Saudi Arabia’s regional dominance.
Socotra now holds the key to the future of the strained Arab coalition and the future of Yemen, a country already coming apart at the seams.
‘We refuse to replace the UAE occupation with a Saudi one’
Ahmed bin Daghr flew to Socotra two weeks ago for a rare visitdesigned to reassert Yemen’s sovereignty over Socotra. Instead, many sources on the island think the prime minister found himself trapped there, subject to the whims of the UAE, which rolled out tanks in a show of military might.
The panicked Yemeni delegation called the Saudis – the keystone of the coalition and main financial backer of the war against the Iran-backed Houthis – to send a mediation committee. Talks over several days after Yemen officially demanded the UAE scale back its military presence did not go well. On 13 May, the Saudis landed another plane, this time carrying armed troops.
“The presence of Saudi troops is alarming,” Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been vocal about the situation on Socotra, told The Independent. “We should not trust these agendas.”
In a Facebook post sent from the safety of the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Thursday, Daghr announced he had finally returned home to the seat of the exiled Yemeni cabinet and that Socotra was safely in Yemeni hands once more.
Pictures have surfaced of Emirati tanks and armoured vehicles being loaded back onto a C-17 military cargo plane. It is not clear whether the Saudi soldiers remain on the island; The Independent's requests for information from Riyadh, Aden and Abu Dhabi have not been answered.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ation-military-emirates-a8360441.html#gallery
i get pissed when i hear about socotra, so close to bari
We must load the Island with Puntites.
