RIYADH,  AFP, 12 May 2017 – The government of war-ravaged Yemen on Friday rejected a self-proclaimed autonomous body in the formerly independent south whose formation is seen as an open challenge to the president’s authority.
An official statement issued after President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi met his advisers in the Saudi capital “categorically rejected” the South Transition Council whose 26 members include the governors of five southern provinces and two government ministers.
The body was announced on Thursday by Aidarous Al-Zoubeidi, the recently fired governor of the southern province of Aden.
“Such acts remain baseless and will never be accepted,” the presidency statement said, adding that the move only served the Houthi militias who have been fighting Hadi’s internationally recognized government for more than two years.
It urged those listed as council members “to declare a clear position” toward the new body.
South Yemen was an independent state until 1990, when it was unified with North Yemen.
Four years later, it launched a separatist rebellion, which culminated in its occupation by northern forces.
The Houthis also rejected the new council, which spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam slammed as a “threat to the territorial unity of the Yemeni republic,” and a part of a “colonial plot.”
Hadi sacked Zoubeidi on April 27 along with Cabinet minister Hani bin Breik, in a move widely seen as reflecting divisions among his supporters.
The two men, who played key roles in restoring security to Aden and adjacent provinces after rebels were pushed out in 2015, are believed to be close to southern independence activists.
Thousands of southern Yemenis responded to the sackings by demonstrating in Aden, Hadi’s hometown where his government is based, and urged Zoubeidi to set up a new leadership body to represent the south.
Meanwhile, the UN International Organization for Migration said— doubling its previous minimum estimate — that an attack on Yemen’s Hodeidah port would displace more than 400,000 people.
“A minimum of 400,000 people will flee the city eastward, once Al Hudaydah is under attack,” IOM’s Director of Operations and Emergencies Mohammed Abdiker said in a statement, using a different English spelling for the port’s name.
The UN has previously warned against any attack by on the Houthi-held port, the aid lifeline for millions of people in desperate need of food, saying that 200,000-500,000 people could be displaced.