Saudis visit Yemen's Socotra to examine UAE deployment

A delegation of Saudi officials has visited Yemen’s Socotra to directly examine the situation in the Indian Ocean island after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) deployed troops and tanks there against the will of a government supported by Riyadh.

Saudi General Ahmed Abderrahman al-Shiri led the delegation that arrived in Socotra on Friday, Yemen’s Saba news agency said, adding that the Saudi official attended a meeting with senior Saudi-backed authorities and UAE officials in the island.

Yemenis said the delegation was briefed on the situation in Socotra, especially after the UAE decided to boost its military presence there.

Residents and authorities in Socotra said last Wednesday that the UAE forces had landed in the island along with tanks, armored transport vehicles and heavy equipment.

The deployment came amid widening divisions between forces loyal to the UAE and those supporting the former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. Both camps are based in southern Yemen and mostly in Aden as the capital Sana’a still remains under the control of the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

Hadi's loyalists have accused the UAE of abandoning an initial cause of fighting the Houthis, saying Emirati forces are instead providing support to those seeking a separation of Yemen's southern territories from the north of the country.

Reports have suggested that the UAE has been actively cementing its presence in Socotra since the very beginning of the Saudi-led campaign against Yemen in March 2015.

Socotra, located near Somalia in the Gulf of Aden, is protected by the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO as a world heritage site, meaning that even the Yemeni government is not allowed to interfere in the natural habitats and places of natural beauty in the area.

Some say the UAE is seeking to illegally exploit the natural resources of the island and turn the place into a tourism hub. To win public support among Socotra’s population of 60,000, the UAE authorities have arranged free tours for Socotra's residents to Abu Dhabi, while offering free healthcare and special work permits.

The mid-week deployment sparked angry reactions among residents of Socotra as reports suggested that people had taken to the streets to protest the increasing presence of the UAE forces. Crowds were also angry about reports that Emirati forces had expelled Hadi's forces assigned to protect the main airport in the island.

The UAE has been among the main contributors to Saudi Arabia’s relentless war on Yemen, a campaign which has left more than 14,000 people, mostly civilians, killed, while hundreds of thousands more remain displaced and in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

Dozens of Emirati soldiers have been killed in the military operation while the tiny Persian Gulf country has also suffered considerable losses to its military equipment.

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