Yemen

Yemen’s anti-Huthi coalition has begun to splinter, with sharp fighting between Saudi- and Emirati-backed elements in the country’s south. With UN assistance, the Gulf monarchies should urgently broker a ceasefire as a prelude to an expanded peace process encompassing southern secessionists and others now excluded.

The situation in Yemen is “very fragile”, the top United Nations humanitarian official there has warned, noting that as many as 13 people have been killed and at least 70 wounded over the past three days during clashes in two governorates.

Yemen government forces on Wednesday captured Aden airport from southern separatists and attacked the city’s eastern suburbs, residents and officials said, in renewed fighting that deepened a rift between supposed allies in a Saudi-led coalition.

Washington is looking to prod Saudi Arabia into taking part in secret talks in Oman.

The United Nations describes the situation in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

One month ago, the United Nations top Yemen envoy told the Security Council the country was facing “a crucial moment” in the course of its long and bloody conflict, and on Tuesday, he again urged members to acknowledge that recent infighting around the Government stronghold of Aden were “a clear sign” that the conflict must be brought to a swift, peaceful end.

[…] The fighting between the two sides — ostensible allies in the Saudi-led coalition that for years has been fighting Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, based in the north — has added another layer to the complex civil war in the Arab world's most impoverished country.

Yemen’s southern separatists vowed to keep control over Aden, warning the only way out of the impasse that has fractured a Saudi-led military alliance was for Islamists and northerners to be removed from positions of power in the south. The separatists, supported by coalition member the United Arab Emirates, effectively took over Aden, the temporary seat of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, over the weekend.

Fighting within the anti-Huthi front threatens to make an already multi-faceted conflict even more complex and intractable. Clashes in Aden reveal tensions within the Saudi-led coalition and highlight the pressing need to address Yemen’s “southern question” now rather than wait until a post-conflict political transition.

Clashes between southern separatists and presidential guards in Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government, have killed at least one person and badly wounded two others, according to local officials and witnesses. The violence, which prompted a United Nations call for de-escalation, highlighted a rift within the Saudi-UAE-led coalition battling the Houthi rebel movement since 2015.