The UAE takes new steps to geographically separate Socotra from Yemen
Yemeni sources revealed new steps taken by the UAE to separate the strategically located Socotra Archipelago Governorate from the geography of Yemen.
The sources told Emirates Leaks that the Emirati authorities are currently working on implementing a new plan to separate the Socotra archipelago from the Yemeni geography after starting a comprehensive campaign to persuade the residents to sign this demand.
Abu Dhabi and its separatist allies have controlled Socotra since 2020 and recently began the file of separating the island from Yemeni geography by sending messages to the local community there with “the preference for your independence and separation from Yemen in the south and north.”
According to the sources, the Chairman of the Development Committee of the Khalifa Foundation and the representative of the Emirates Red Crescent Organization, Ali Issa bin Afrar, one of the most prominent Sheikhs of Socotra, spoke before a crowd of leaders and dignitaries after he arrived in the Emirates, that Socotra “does not follow the north or the south.”
Bin Afrar claimed that “the transitional – the UAE-backed separatist Southern Council that controls Aden – is over, and it no longer has a role, and whoever wants the south, let them go to the city of Aden.”
In parallel, the UAE began a recruitment campaign for Socotra youth through its tools on the island, including officials and tribal leaders, and transferred them to the UAE for training, and some as labourers and security guards affiliated with the sheikhs there.
The recruitment process was entrusted to Ahmed Saeed bin Hammad, an Emirati of origin whose father previously came to Socotra for trade.
The recruitment process aims to attract thousands of Socotra youth in exchange for promises of a monthly salary of up to 5,000 dirhams.
The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Salem Al Socotri, who is also a member of the Presidency of the Transitional Council, arrived last week to support this plan from Abu Dhabi, where he conducts meetings with the sheikhs and visits the regions to promote the Emirati project of separating the island from its Yemeni domain.
The UAE is preparing for a coup led by Sheikh Ali bin Issa Al Afrar after he appointed his brother, Sheikh Abdullah bin Issa Al Afrar, as deputy leader of the General Council of the governorates of the governor Al-Mahra and Socotra. He had previously been removed from his presidency in Al-Mahra Governorate, eastern Yemen.
The coup plan calls for the separation of the Mahra Council from Socotra, and the expulsion of the second from the island, so that its focus is on the governorate of Mahra only.
Through this plan, the UAE aims to separate the decades-old historical link between the Mahris and the Socotri so that Socotra would be a single entity that is not linked to any Yemeni geography.
Simultaneously with the recruitment campaign for Socotri youth, Socotra people are also being given new identity cards bearing the Socotra nationality instead of the Yemeni nationality.
This comes more than a week after the Emirati academic Abdul Khaliq Abdullah’s visit, who is close to the authorities in the Emirates, to the island of Socotra, which pro-Emirati forces have controlled since June 2020.
On the sidelines of the visit, Abdullah wrote tweets that sparked widespread controversy in various Yemeni circles.
In one of them, he said: “Some of those he spoke to in Socotra wished that the island would be the eighth emirate in the UAE.”
Socotra is an archipelago of 6 islands in the Indian Ocean. Until the end of 2013, it belonged to Hadhramaut (east), before Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Hadi issued a decision to transfer the islands to the “Socotra Archipelago” governorate.
Since the separatist forces backed by the UAE took control of the island of Socotra in June 2020, with Saudi support, which owns a military base in the city of Hadibo, the capital of the archipelago, there has been no official Yemeni presence there.
