UAE controls the largest economic project in Yemen

French reports on an Emirati jail at a Yemeni oil facility have brought the spotlight to the fate of Yemen’s largest economic project, which the UAE has seized, and turned it into a military barracks, in light of the shifts in the country in recent months, leading up to the “Riyadh Agreement”. The Yemeni government will return to work from within the country and benefit from various revenues, including those that Abu Dhabi has blocked for years.

Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper, citing sources close to the Yemeni government, said that the UAE presence in the Balhaf strategic facility in Shabwa province, despite the events in August, ended with government forces controlling the various areas of the province. After fighting with the forces of the so-called “Shabwani elite”, the UAE arm in the province.

According to the sources, the Yemeni army arrived at the gate of the Balhaf facility after taking control of the various “elite camps”, but they refrained from entering a direct confrontation with the Emirati force in Balhaf before Saudi forces joined them.

The sources described the UAE’s continued presence as “limited”, unlike the previous phase, as Balhaf was the region through which the Emiratis run their local arms in Shabwa and prevent the Yemeni government from operating the facility, which is the largest economic project in the country.

The talk about Balhaf’s fate follows a report by French newspaper Le Monde that the UAE has turned Total’s facility into a secret prison where torture was practiced against detainees.

Yemeni sources say the prison served as a temporary station, sometimes to transport detainees to other prisons run by Abu Dhabi outside the country.

In September, Shabwah Governor Mohammed Saleh bin Adiou said in a statement that the UAE had turned the Balhaf facility into a “military barracks”, preventing the operation of the LNG project, which began production in 2009, which is also linked to Marib province. And Yemen is losing billions of dollars because of the suspension, in light of the economic crisis in the country.

In February 2018, Yemen’s Minister of Transport Saleh al-Jubwani stood before the media to make the first-of-its-kind remarks highlighting UAE’s practices in Shabwa. He revealed that the command of the UAE forces in Balhaf prevented him from reaching to lay the foundation stone for a port project in Governorate. Abu Dhabi suffered a heavy blow, losing control of the province, following clashes in the province in August.

While the Yemenis await the transition of the Riyadh Agreement between the government and the so-called Southern Transitional Council to the implementation phase, and prior arrangements, including the withdrawal of the Emiratis from Aden and their surrender to Saudi forces, Riyadh has become the supervisor and guarantor of the implementation of the agreement. The presence of Emirati forces, or any other forces, prevents the facility from restarting and would reflect on Yemenis hopes of starting a new phase.