UAE accused of landing separatists on remote island

YemenExtra

Y.A

The United Arab Emirates has been accused of landing around 100 separatist troops on a remote island in the Arabian Sea this week.

The UAE is one of the Arab countries fighting formally on behalf of Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US,but the UAE has had a tense relationship with the government , loyal to the coalition, and has recruited thousands of fighters from a movement of southern separatists who have clashed with government troops.

Yemeni officials said around 100 separatist fighters had disembarked in civilian clothes on Monday from a UAE naval vessel on Socotra, the main island in a sparsely populated Yemeni archipelago in the Arabian Sea.

The island, part of Yemen but closer to the African coast than the Yemeni mainland, is a UNESCO world natural heritage site protected by the U.N. body for its unique flora and fauna.

It was not the first time the government of the fugitive Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is based in the southern port of Aden, has complained about UAE troop moves on Socotra.

Two Yemeni government sources said on Wednesday the UAE had trained a batch of 300 troops bound for Socotra in Aden last week, and sent more than 100 of them to the island on Monday.

Yemen’s interior minister, reacting to reports that southern separatist troops were headed for Socotra, criticised the UAE last week and said it should concentrate on fighting the Yemeni army forces.

Last year the military transport planes from the UAE arrived on the island, unloading tanks and troops as part of the Gulf Arab state’s drive to extend its influence over a strategic Bab Al-Mandab waterway.

Hundreds of Yemenis marched through the city of Hadiboh, the capital of the Socotra Island, in protest against the UAE forces taking control of the governorate.

In March 2015, the US -backed –Saudi-led coalition started  a war against Yemen with the declared aim of crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who had taken over from the staunch Riyadh ally and fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, while also seeking to secure the Saudi border with its southern neighbor. Three years and over 600,000 dead and injured Yemeni people and  prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, the war has yielded little to that effect.

Despite the coalition claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

However, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on the US in its brutal war on Yemen. Washington has deployed a commando force on the Arab kingdom’s border with Yemen to help destroy arms belonging to Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement. Washington has also provided logistical support and aerial refueling.

#YemenCantWait #YemenGenocide #Yemen #Yemencantwait #YemenGenocide #Yemen_children #StoparmingEmirates #StoparmingSaudi #Stopthewaronyemen#LivingInYemenOnTheEdge#SoldarityWithThePeopleOfYemen