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UAE begins evacuating forces from Yemen’s Socotra

May 18, 2018 at 10:36 am

The Yemeni island of Socotra, 24 May 2018 [Rod Waddington/Flickr]

The first batch of UAE troops left the Yemeni island of Socotra yesterday, sources have said.

Two sources told Arabi21 that three UAE planes arrived in the island and left carrying large batches of soldiers and military vehicles.yem

Saudi Ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al-Jaber, arrived on the island on Monday and left yesterday as part of Riyadh mediated talks to find a solution to the deadlock between the UAE and Yemen government on the island.

Two Yemeni sources reported that a first batch of UAE troops deployed on the island of Socotra at the end of last April left Thursday.

Saudi Arabia has sponsored an agreement Sunday to “return the work of [Yemeni] security forces at the airport and the port,” according to the official Saba news agency.

Saudi forces deployed to ‘train’ Yemen troops in Socotra

It also provides for “the withdrawal of all forces brought to the island after the arrival of the Government and the normalisation of life in all areas and islands of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Yemen.”

Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr announced last Monday that Socotra’s crisis with the United Arab Emirates was over after a Saudi-sponsored agreement was reached.

The situation on the island of Socotra has been strained since the UAE deployed its forces on it without the permission of the internationally backed Yemeni government which declared its rejection of the Emirati move, calling it “unjustified”.

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