Vomena August 16, 2019 Mapping the Yemen War & Recent Fighting in the Southern City of Aden

Yemen’s southern secessionist forces appear to have taken effective control of the port city of Aden, seat of the internationally recognized government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. In this latest conflict, fighters loyal to Southern Transitional Council (STC), which seeks an independent south Yemen, began an offensive against the government forces on August 7. Both sides have been part of a military coalition, dominated by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE), which intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthis and their allies after they removed Mr. Hadi from power earlier that year. The separatist fighters involved in the recent showdown are UAE trained while the government forces appear to be backed by the Saudis. What is the significance of this recent confrontation? How will it impact the ongoing war in Yemen? What do we need to know about South Yemen and its history? Who are the secessionist in Yemen today? Does the showdown in Eden signal a schism in the Saudi-UAE coalition? To answer these questions, we turn to Sheila Carapico, a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Professor Carapico is the author of Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia. More recently, she edited a volume entitled Arabia Incognita: Dispatches from Yemen and the Gulf.