Local media on Tuesday circulated a document reveals that the UAE had embarked on a process of displacing the residents of the Yemeni Mayoun Island, located in the center of the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, under the pretext of building new homes.
According to the document, the Sheikh, called Saleh Ali Saeed Khazour, who signed an agreement with the governor of Aden, Ahmed Lamlas, to establish buildings with Emirati funding, in his capacity as the leader of the island, has the right to dispose in those buildings in the event that one of the residents decides to leave, in coordination with another person called “the island sheikh”, Sami Saeed Mohammed Fashaa.
Legalists believe that the document and the city-building project are a prelude to stripping the island’s residents, who number no more than five hundred, of their homes and property in the city in the future by confiscating them in the name of the pro-UAE sheikh.
International agencies and media, including the Associated Press, had revealed the UAE’s establishment of a military airport runway and military facilities on the important island, which is considered the gateway to the Red Sea.