Inside Story

Could Yemen as a country fall apart?

UAE-backed southern separatists seize Aden and rally for independence.

North and South Yemen came together in 1990 to form a united country after years of conflict.

However, it’s been an uneasy union, and the civil war that began in 2015 is deepening the divide.

Separatists from the Southern Transitional Council (STC) are part of a Saudi-UAE military coalition fighting the Houthi rebels.

But in a dramatic twist last week, the UAE-backed separatists took over the city of Aden, the seat of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.

Thousands of people waved the old South Yemen flag during a rally to support the STC.

How will the developments affect the civil war and the fragile Saudi-UAE coalition?

Presenter: Hashem Ahelbarra

Guests:

Alkhader Sulaiman – Director of the STC’s office of foreign affairs in New York

Elisabeth Kendall – Senior research fellow at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford

Afrah Nasser – Journalist and editor-in-chief of the Sanaa Review