Hadramout: Popular Anger Block Oil and Fish Exports

SMA NEWS – MUKALLA

For the third consecutive day, popular civil points in Wadi Hadramout, in the South , blocked the passage of crude oil and fish tanks and trucks.

These popular movements came after the General Meeting of Hadramout, which was called by the “Hadramout Alliance and the Inclusive Hadramout Conference bloc”, at the end of last October and declared several demands and escalatory steps.

The meeting demanded the abolition of the new increase in the prices of oil derivatives, an end to the people’s suffering, and to deploy the pro-STC Hadrami Elite Forces (Southern Transitional Council) throughout the Hadramout governorate.

Pictures showed dozens of oil trucks belonging to businessmen and influential figures affiliated with the Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar after they were blocked and halted by the local checkpoints.

These checkpoints also prevented the passage of other trucks carrying quantities of fish.

In a statement today, the STC in Hadramout praised the escalating steps by preventing oil derivatives from leaving the governorate.

The STC warned the local authority from “ignoring citizens’ demands to combat corruptions.”

The STC said that the people of Hadramout “will not accept injustice after today,” stressing that they “will not die of starvation” while their wealth is looted by what he described as the “legitimacy thieves.”

The STC also warned the 1st Military District forces, mostly coming from North Yemen, from “violating citizens’ right and looting their wealth.”

The “Extended Consultative Meeting of Hadramout” called the Hadramout Coast branch of the Yemen Petroleum Company to strike next Sunday.

Hadramout upraise

Southern activists launched the second trending hashtag on the “upraise of Hadramout”, in reference to the ongoing popular escalation in Hadramout Governorate, similar to the 2013 popular uprising following the killing of a prominent tribal sheikh at the hands of Yemeni government forces.

Southern activists called on all Hadramout residents to join the popular civil committees that are implementing the latest escalatory steps.

Prominent Hadrami journalist Amjed Sabeeh called on the people of the governorate to give “support and aid to everyone who works for the benefit of Hadramout and its people.”

The prominent STC politician Ahmed Omar Bin Fareed pointed out that the people of Hadramout have had enough, and their suffering had reached an “unbearable point that cannot be tolerated.”

The head of the “Hadramout Alliance and the Inclusive Hadramout Conference bloc” Salem bin Sumayda called on the “Inclusive Hadramout Conference” and the Hadramout Wadi and Desert tribes to support the people of the governorate who “came out for the glory of Hadramout.”

Hadrami activist Abu Bakr Baqasy considered that “there is no place for mediation,” stressing that their demands are known, and their choice is to restore the Southern state.

It should be noted that Hadramout is divided into the Coast and Wadi regions, and the local authority led by the governor controls the first, while the 1st Military District which is affiliated with Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar controls the latter.

Dozens of gas fields and oil wells are spread in this vast governorate geographically, controlled by a narrow circle in the Yemeni presidency, and influential people from South and North Yemen.