This article is mostly adapted from excerpts of the conflict timeline in our recent Yemen control map report of February 8, 2026, organized into a stand-alone article for readers curious about the situation in the Socotra Archipelago specifically. Continuing research up to February 18, 2026 has not resulted in any changes to our control assessment from that report, though some additional sources have been referenced.
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Map adapted from an excerpt of PolGeoNow's February 2026 map of control in Yemen. By Evan Centanni and Djordje Djukic, from base map by Koen Adams of onestopmap.com.
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Current Situation in the Socotra Islands
Article by Evan CentanniThe last two and a half months have seen rapid changes to the political and territorial situation in the Arabia region's Republic of Yemen, as covered in PolGeoNow's Yemen control map reports for December 30, 2025 and February 8, 2026. These events have seen large swaths of the country's mainland switch control between southern separatists and a coalition of anti-separatist forces, each side backed by a wealthy neighboring country of the Arabian Peninsula.
However, Yemen's island province of Socotra, far offshore to the southeast, has been spared any major fighting, and there's now some confusion about which side controls even the main island, not to mention the smaller islands to its west. At PolGeoNow we don't like to leave big questions unanswered, so here we've done a deep-dive into the available reporting and other sources in search of a little more clarity.
For all the details, see the rest of the article below. But in short, our conclusion is that separatist armed forces seem to still control most of Socotra's main island, except for the international airport, despite the separatist-affiliated provincial governor now making a show of cooperating with Yemen's anti-separatist internationally-recognized government. On the smaller outlying islands, it's unclear whether anything has changed or not.
These questions would of course benefit more from direct knowledge of the situation on the ground, and we encourage readers to contact us with any tips or corrections they might have.
Background: Southern Separatists and the Saudi-backed PLC
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Map from Wikimedia Commons, with arrow added by PolGeoNow, showing the location of Socotra within the wider region. (License: CC BY-SA)
(Please note: This map's depiction of the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border is out of date, and also excludes the disputed Republic of Somaliland, which controls roughly the western half of what's shown here as northern Somalia). |
Until recently, Yemen's civil war had passed more than three years at barely a simmer, with no major changes to territorial control. That all changed in December 2025, when separatist coalition the Southern Transitional Council (STC) swept across the eastern provinces of Hadramawt and Mahra, nearly completing its control of all areas formerly included in the independent People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (popularly known as "South Yemen" because it governed the entire southern coastline, though it also included the inland northeast).
Socotra was one of those former "South Yemen" areas, and had already been under STC governance since 2020 with the support of troops from neighboring country the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which also backed the STC on the Yemeni mainland.
Learn More: Map of Control in Yemen at the Height of Separatist Power, with timeline of events since 2023
The STC's new victory would prove short-lived. The UAE pulled out of Yemen a few weeks later under pressure from the closer neighboring country Saudi Arabia, which backed the dominant, anti-separatist faction of Yemen's internationally-recognized Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) government.* Without the UAE to get in the way, STC fighters were quickly forced to pull back in the face of advances by the Saudi-backed PLC's new paramilitary wing, the "Homeland Shield" (a.k.a. National Shield Force/Nation's Shield), withdrawing even from areas of the southwest that they'd controlled for many years prior.
Meanwhile, a large group of STC officials, who had traveled to Saudi Arabia to negotiate, declared that their organization was officially dissolving. However, that claim has been rejected not only by followers on the ground in Yemen, but also by the group's top leader and by high-up officials based in the UAE, who suggested the delegation was being held captive and made its statement under duress. The STC leadership outside Saudi Arabia has also continued to defend its plan to establish an independent "South Arabia" by 2028, despite failing to follow through with threats to declare independence immediately if Saudi-backed forces attacked.
Learn More: Timeline of the Fall of the STC (with current map of countrywide control)
Country Name: • Yemen (English) • Al-Yaman (Arabic) Official Name: • Republic of Yemen (English) • al-JumhĊĞriyyah al-Yamaniyyah (Arabic) Capital: • Sana'a (constitutional; seat of Houthi govt.) • Aden (official provisional capital of internationally-recognized government - not currently in use) • Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (temporary headquarters of internationally-recognized government) |
Either way, the STC now looks like a shadow of its former self: Its top leader, though posting defiantly online, has allegedly fled to the UAE - though this hasn't been independently confirmed, and STC officials in Yemen have denied it. Meanwhile, major allied armed groups have chosen to cooperate with the anti-separatist government, hollowing out the STC's influence many areas.
Though the STC apparently still maintains political offices and substantial public support across many of the provinces it recently controlled, its remaining armed forces on the mainland have given up southern capital Aden and retreated to a small inland bastion in the southwest.
The situation in far-flung Socotra province, on the other hand, is not so clear...
*The PLC was originally formed as a temporary unity government, including delegates from the STC as well as rival groups. It controls Yemen's seat at the United Nations and major international organizations, despite the country's capital and more than half the population being governed by the rival "Houthis". STC delegates who continue to support the separatist cause have now been expelled from the PLC.
Socotra: Initial Political Jockeying
In contrast to the dramatic reversal of separatist power on the Yemeni mainland, in Socotra a more subtle, apparently bloodless power struggle played out amid the UAE’s withdrawal. Compared to the mainland, the island province was especially intertwined with the UAE - by some accounts the foreign country had operated Socotra as something approaching an overseas territory of its own since landing troops there in 2018, later backing the STC to seize control of the provincial government in 2020. Saudi Arabia also kept a unit of troops on the island, known as “Task Force 808”, but it was understood not to be in control of the surrounding areas.
At the beginning of 2026, Socotra's STC-aligned governor at first came out strongly in support of the separatist group's two-year independence plan for “South Arabia” (intended to include Socotra), asserting that both the provincial government and the armed forces there would back separation from northwestern Yemen. Around the same time, UAE personnel reportedly blocked an attempt by the island’s isolated contingent of Saudi troops to assert influence over the seaport just east of Hadibu, Socotra's capital and main town (also spelled Hadibo or Hadiboh). Meanwhile, one witness said STC forces were occupying the Socotra Airport west of town.
On January 4 it was alleged that STC forces were besieging the headquarters of the Saudi contingent on the island, which was located next to the airport. Though the island as a whole was considered to be under UAE-backed STC administration, the Saudi force had previously controlled the seaport and also maintained a headquarters apparently within Hadibu town. It had reportedly withdrawn from its positions at the seaport in 2021, then moved its headquarters to an expanded base by the airport in 2023. Despite the Saudi presence next door, the UAE seemed to administer the airport itself, which maintained international passenger flight connections only to UAE capital city Abu Dhabi.
Those flights were suspended on December 30, 2025 under nationwide orders from the Saudi-backed PLC government - just as the UAE buckled to Saudi pressure to give up its influence in Yemen - leaving hundreds of international tourists stranded on Socotra. However, on January 6 it was announced that a new passenger flight route would start operations, connecting to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia instead of the UAE - seeming to show that Saudi forces had secured control of the airport. “Airport sources” confirmed to international newswire Reuters that the facilities were “no longer under Emirati control”, despite the island as a whole still being governed by the STC. Reports from the subsequent days would confirm that flights did indeed begin operating between Socotra and Saudi Arabia.
Completion of UAE Withdrawal from Socotra Main Island
As of one week into January 2026, accounts still differed on whether the UAE had yet completed its withdrawal from Socotra. One source told Reuters that it had already done so in December (apparently incorrectly, given reports of UAE activities there a few days earlier), while an independent conflict tracker would assert on January 8 that UAE troops were still “finalizing their preparations to leave”.
However, the next week pro-PLC media would accuse the UAE of maintaining a low-profile presence on the island in the form of civilian personnel at industrial facilities - apparently an acknowledgement that military withdrawals were complete. In mid-February, pro-Saudi media would report that a fire at Socotra's port burned unchecked because "Emirati forces" had "not intervened or responded to the situation thus far for various reasons" - however, it seems likely that this was a reference to STC loyalist fighters on the island, who the report intended to portray as agents of the UAE.
Outlying Islands: Abd al-Kuri and Samhah
The status of Socotra's much smaller inhabited islands of Abd al-Kuri and Samhah remains unclear into February 2026.* Both islands are documented to have newly-built airstrips, established prior to the events of recent months, apparently by the UAE military. And in the month since the UAE's withdrawal from Socotra's main island, conflicting understandings have emerged online about what (if anything) has happened to these farther-flung outposts.
Commentary on the islands from UAE-critical sources has ranged from celebrating them coming under PLC control to accusing the UAE of secretly holding on to its military presence there. A late-January press release by Yemen’s human rights monitoring institution would refer cryptically to Abd al-Kuri and Samhah as being "particularly" vulnerable to Socotra’s “increased isolation affecting access to basic services”. Meanwhile, a major international newspaper would note that the UAE’s expected withdrawal from the two islands was “not confirmed”.
The strongest evidence we could find that the UAE really has withdrawn from the islands comes in a February 7th article by a London based academic researcher, who seems to say that the Saudi and PLC governments conducted a "post-takeover...inspection" of former UAE facilities on Abd al-Kuri and Samhah. However, he links this statement to an article that doesn't say that, and it's not 100% clear that he's indeed referring to those islands specifically.
Accusations of a continued UAE presence on the island also beg the question of why Saudi Arabia or Yemen's PLC government hasn't made any public statement denouncing the rival country's failure to withdraw. However, we can't rule out that they might have some reason to keep it quiet (such as ongoing secret negotiations, or even a backroom agreement between Saudi Arabia and the UAE - who are more often allies than enemies - to allow the continued functioning of the facilities there).
PolGeoNow will be continuing to monitor the news and other sources for clearer information on these islands, which for now we've marked on our map as being under "mixed/unclear" control.
*Darsa, the third-biggest outlying island of Socotra, is uninhabited, making control there harder to define, even if there was any information available.
Socotra's STC Governor Changes Stance
In mid-January the STC-affiliated governor of Socotra started making friendly statements about cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Saudi-backed PLC government, despite having supported calls for southern independence less than two weeks earlier. While apparently framing the issue as if nothing had changed, he reportedly went so far as to say he would “welcome” the deployment of Homeland Shield fighters on the island (possibly a bluff, since he was simultaneously implying that this would be unnecessary).
Over the following weeks, pro-PLC news would continue to report related statements from Socotra's provincial administrations, welcoming developments such as Saudi relief aid (to fill economic gaps left by the UAE’s rapid pullout), the transfer of control of local utilities from Emirati to PLC-aligned management, and Saudi-backed projects to further build out the island’s infrastructure.
Military Control of Socotra Main Island
Despite the governor's change of tone, we've found no news of any change to the loyalty of actual armed men on the ground in Socotra. Indeed, even anti-separatist media outlets have continued to hint at holdout forces of the STC still being the dominant armed group on the ground across the island. For this reason, we've continued to color the main island of Socotra as separatist-controlled - except for the international airport - on our recent overview map of control in Yemen.
In mid-February, a report from pro-Saudi media would appear to confirm that Saudi-aligned PLC forces were not in control of Hadibu's seaport either, noting a "total absence of civil defense infrastructure" there while passing blame for an unextinguished fire onto "Emirati forces" (likely a reference to the STC loyalist fighters, being portrayed here as continuing agents of the UAE).
The available information leaves open the possibility that a gap has emerged between the respective intentions of the Socotra governor's office and the island's armed STC fighters; but it could also be that they have a mutual understanding to continue on this path: armed STC fighters maintaining support for the separatist cause, while the civilian government does what's necessary to avoid provoking major action against them.
For more coverage of Yemen's civil war, including both our archive of control maps and future updates, you can view all Yemen reports on PolGeoNow.
Graphic of Yemeni flag is in the public domain (source).