In 1990, when the Republic of Yemen was formed to unify the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), the mountainous province of Ad Dhale did not exist. The unification agreement crafted between YAR president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Ali Salem Al-Beidh of the PDRY did not fill two pages, and the provisional unity it devised was short-lived. A southern secession attempt in 1994 led to a brief civil war during which Ad Dhale still did not exist. Although Saleh brutally crushed the southern separatists in less than two months, until today many southerners who support an independent southern state consider everything that followed their 1994 secession bid to be a northern occupation of the south.[1] Under that perspective, Saleh’s occupation of Yemen’s south included a post-war redistricting process that created Ad Dhale province in 1998.
The historic geopolitical separation between Yemen’s north and south was initially demarcated by colonial rule—with the Turkish Ottomans dominating the north and the British the south, and the two powers agreeing on a boundary between them. The Ottomans were the first of those colonial powers to go in 1918, restoring power to a theocratic Zaydi[2] imamate that ruled the north until it was overthrown by Republican revolutionaries in September 1962. In October 1963, the uprising that ended British rule in Yemen’s south was launched from Radfan, a district that is now part of Lahj province, and considered part of a historic axis of southern military power together with a zone called Yafa’ that spans districts within the current borders of Lahj, Abyan, and Ad Dhale provinces. British colonial rule in south Yemen gave way to the rise of the Marxist PDRY, which had its own brief but bloody civil war in 1986. In that conflict, a group of tribes called the Tughma—from Lahj, Hadhramout, and areas that today fall within the borders of Ad Dhale—defeated bedouin from Abyan and Shabwa, known as the Zumra.[3] The Zumra who survived largely fled north to the YAR and in 1994 sided with Saleh’s regime to defeat the PDRY’s secessionist Tughma army that hailed largely from Lahj and what is now the southern reaches of Ad Dhale.[4] Consequently, when Ad Dhale was formed in 1998 by carving five districts out of Lahj,[5] which was formerly part of the PDRY, and four districts from the former YAR provinces of Al Bayda,[6] Taiz,[7] and Ibb,[8] the former PDRY districts had grievances against both Saleh’s northern regime as well as the southern Zumra bedouin that they had driven into his arms.[9]
Ad Dhale province was not yet ten years old when southern military officers—mainly from the Tughma—who had been forced into early retirement and denied their pensions formed the Association of Retired Military, Security, and Civilian Personnel there in 2006. In 2007, civil servants, teachers, lawyers, academics, and unemployed civilians from across the PDRY’s territories joined the officers to form a southern protest movement called Al-Hirak. Initially, their demands focused on access to government jobs and benefits, greater local autonomy, enforcement of the rule of law, just distribution of land, and more equitable resource sharing. However, by 2008, Al Hirak was openly calling for southern independence. The movement later radicalized and split into several groups with diverging ideologies championing southern independence. Saleh’s regime repressed these groups, which led parts of southern Ad Dhale, Lahj, and Abyan to reject the rule of his centralized state in favor of Al Hirak and the Yemeni Socialist Party. By 2010, just one year before the Arab Spring protests that would eventually end Saleh’s rule of nearly 34 years,[10] he already had little left to lose in Ad Dhale. A woman from Aden who visited Ad Dhale that year told the International Crisis Group, “Once you are inside Ad Dhale, you do not see the state police or the army. They are on the border, but not inside. Inside there is nothing, only angry people.”[11]
In 2014, while the Houthis were busy taking over Sana’a from the transitional government that had replaced Saleh’s regime in 2012, Ad Dhale’s poverty rate was nearly 60 percent. Nonetheless, Ad Dhale’s modern southern movement, as well as the medieval history of its regions, predisposed it to become a natural frontline against the Houthis’ advance south. In the 15th Century, tribal sheiks from the Juban district of modern-day Ad Dhale—who would become known as the Tahrid dynasty—first rose to become proxy rulers for the Rasulid dynasty[12] who were then archrivals of the Houthis’ Zaydi ancestors. “Their territory, which lay at the fringes of the Zaydi controlled domain, was a frontier the Zaydis were constantly trying to push forward,” wrote Dr. Venetia Ann Porter in a 1992 thesis on Tahrid history. “Their robust resistance to the Zaydis as time went by, led the Rasulids increasingly to regard them as important allies.” [13]
By the time the Rasulids fell, the Tahrid’s were poised to rule lower Yemen and Yemen’s Tihama[14] region outright—which they did for 80 years. Meanwhile, during their reign, the Tahrid’s never stopped clashing with the Zaydis to the north and, at one point, even temporarily seized Sana’a. Nearly 500 years later, Ad Dhale’s local resistance led by Ayderous Al-Zubaidi halted the Houthis’ initial advance in the province in 2015, and it has remained a frontline ever since.[15] Al-Zubaidi, a key figure within Al Hirak, would go on to serve briefly as Aden’s governor before establishing the Southern Transitional Council (STC),[16] which he continues to lead today with core support from Tughma tribesmen.[17] Meanwhile, from 2015 through 2023, the Armed Conflict and Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded 3,163 political violence events in Ad Dhale resulting in 9,815 fatalities. Over 55 percent of the events and more than 60 percent of the fatalities occurred in 2019 and 2020 when fighting was most intense in the province. Although Ad Dhale’s frontlines are quieter now, Yemen’s first civilian casualty of 2024 was recorded in Qaatabah district on January 1st when sniper fire injured a 15-year-old girl, and the province’s fronts have remained deadly all year, with ACLED recording 107 fatalities due to 48 political violence events through the end of June.
Despite hosting such active frontlines for nearly a decade, Ad Dhale’s civilians have suffered more due to humanitarian needs than violent conflict over that time. By 2023, about 70 percent of the population—or more than 630,000 people—were in need of humanitarian assistance, with 60 percent in dire need. Specifically, Ad Dhale faces a unique water crisis within one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. The United Nations (UN) has found that 15.3 million Yemenis—more than half the population—do not have access to sufficient, safe, and acceptable water for personal and domestic uses, including drinking, cooking, and sanitation.[18] Among those in need, the population of Ad Dhale is particularly vulnerable, since much of the water they are able to extract from increasingly deeper wells contains highly toxic levels of fluoride. In April 2024, the South24 Center for News and Studies published a detailed case study on the human tragedy unfolding in the Al Azariq and Al Hussein districts of Ad Dhale due to this water crisis—particularly emphasizing its impact on women and girls.[19]
Among its life-threatening impacts, Ad Dhale’s water crisis is driving a toxic relationship with qat[20] in the province. Although Al Dhale is famous for its fertile farmland and crop diversity, qat cultivation has been increasing across its fields since 2010, replacing other crops due to high demand and comparatively higher profit margins. Qat is also more drought-resistant than food crops, making it seem like an attractive option for farmers when the availability of water for irrigation is unreliable. Unfortunately, while the hardy qat plant may survive in times of drought, generating a harvest of its tender green leaves to take to market is a water-intensive process that is only increasing Ad Dhale’s water woes by further depleting its aquifers. In 2021, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network reported that qat was the main cash earner in Ad Dhale’s Damt and Juban districts, as well as parts of Al Hussein, Qa’atabah, and Al Husha districts—where it supplied better-off households with most of their annual income and provided the poor with labor opportunities throughout the marketing chain. While increasing short-term access to cash, the decline in food crop production in favor of qat has left Ad Dhale’s communities even more dependent on markets supplied by imports from Aden to access food. However, prolonged conflict-related road closures often render Ad Dhale’s main trade corridors totally inaccessible for long periods of time. Thus, when suppliers are forced to take longer, more difficult routes to reach markets in the province, this drives up the cost of food for the increasingly import-dependent population.[21]
Transit in Ad Dhale generally requires traversing a distinctly rugged terrain where small villages cling defiantly to the ledges of harsh mountain peaks and larger towns rise in their shadows. Some of Ad Dhale’s peaks tower nearly 8,000 feet above sea level and offer control of large expanses of plains and valleys. A few of these mountains shelter springs that support hundreds of wells, while others are watered only by the rain that falls in part due to the atmospheric impact of summits lifting moist air to cooler temperatures. Many of the province’s mountainsides have been carved into terraces characteristic of Yemen’s highland farming practices. In other places, sharp peaks and abysses define dramatic valleys where people grow coffee, wheat, and barley in addition to qat.[22] Meanwhile, in Damt district, Ad Dhale’s geology has bestowed another resource on the local population—natural hot springs. In 2002, The Yemen Times reported that 80,000 people visited the seven baths in the town of Damt every year to benefit from the healing properties of the calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and other minerals dissolved in the warm waters. The springs are believed to offer remedies from expelling worms from the digestive tract to easing rheumatism, arthritis, and various skin conditions. On the southern edge of the town, a dormant volcano called Al Haradha rises as an ancient artifact of the geothermal activity that now generates the hot springs. Visitors can peer down into its crater by climbing 117 iron steps while they ponder the local legends that suggest it erupted either as a punishment on a sinful king who sought to marry his own daughter, or on a sinful queen who committed adultery daily.[23]
While Damt’s hot springs may be restorative to those who visit them, today the people of Ad Dhale need much more than a plunge into therapeutic waters to heal the deep wounds of a history forged out of trauma, combat, and now a national addiction to qat. In a devastating story emblematic of a people stretched far beyond their material and psychological coping capacities, Aden Al Ghad newspaper reported that in the last week of June, a father in Ad Dhale killed his own son who was suffering from a chronic mental illness that the family could not afford to treat.[24] For now, Ad Dhale’s families must continue battling the dehumanizing forces that daily threaten their dignity and sanity and often leave them with impossible choices. Upholding the humanity of such families on the brink can begin with doing more to support their most basic needs of water, food, and healthcare—while also developing and enforcing strategies and policies that prioritize the usage of groundwater for domestic use and for farmers growing staple crops and raising livestock over the usage of wealthier landowners who have prioritized qat.[25] In the absence of such interventions, life inside this battleground province is likely to only grow more unbearable.[26]
[1] https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/yemen/yemens-southern-transitional-council-delicate-balancing-act
[2] Zaydism is one of the three main branches of Shia Islam that emerged in the 8th Century following Zayd Ibn Ali’s unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. Imam Al-Hady Yahya Ila Al Haqq founded a Zaydi Imamate in Yemen in the 9th Century, and Zaydi Imams ruled Yemen’s highlands henceforth, with the exception of two historical periods during which the Ottomans occupied northern Yemen (1517 -1632 and 1872 – 1918). Most of the world’s Zaydis are located in northern Yemen and the Saudi Arabian area of Najran.
[4] International Crisis Group, Foreign Policy
[5] Al Azariq, Al Hussein, Ad Dhalea, Jahaf, Al Shuayb
[6] Juban
[7] Al Husha
[8] Damt & Qatabah
[9] https://south24.net/news/docs/Water_Crisis_in_AlDhalea_En.pdf
[10] Saleh assumed the presidency of the YAR in 1978, following the assassination of former presidents Ibrahim Al Hamdy and Ahmed Al Ghashmi.
[11] International Crisis Group, Carnegie Middle East Center, European Council on Foreign Relations
[12] A Turkish Sunni dynasty based in Taiz that ruled southern Yemen from 1229 – 1454 CE after the Ayyubids of Egypt abandoned the area.
[13] https://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/1/5867_3282-vol1.PDF
[14] The Red Sea coastal plain of the Arabian Peninsula.
[15] https://www.eip.org/pathwaysforreconciliation/part6/
[16] In 2017, Al Zubaidi, then vice-president of Yemen’s Internationally Recognized Governorate (IRG), announced that eight provinces of southern Yemen were declaring independence—forming the STC. In May 2023 other southern factions joined the STC by signing the Southern National Charter, which calls for restoring borders that existed before Yemen’s 1990 unification. Now the STC President and a member of the IRG’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), Al Zubaidi enjoys support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and continues to push for southern independence in a stance that conflicts with the interests of Saudi-backed factions of the IRG.
[17] Crisis Group, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), ACLED
[18] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/11/yemen-warring-parties-deepen-water-crisis
[19] https://south24.net/news/docs/Water_Crisis_in_AlDhalea_En.pdf, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eZv7HcFTlw&t=2s
[20] Qat is a shrub cultivated in the Middle East and Africa that contains the alkaloid cathinone, a stimulant. Chewing the leaves and buds of the shrub has a history as a social custom dating back thousands of years. Some 80 percent of Yemenis chew qat, which is said to cause a mild high, reducing feelings of fatigue and exhaustion during the first hours of chewing it. It is also an appetite suppressant and tends to prevent sleep. In 2017, Yemenis’ annual spending on qat was reported to be about $12 billion USD. Qat chewing sessions can be very important in Yemen’s cultural and social context, as during these sessions people exchange information and build social capital. While participating in qat chews has been linked to strategies for coping with challenges, the cost of chewing and the time involved also drain resources.
[21] https://fews.net/sites/default/files/documents/reports/YEMEN_October%202021_Food%20Security%20Outlook_Report_0911211_FINAL.pdf
[22] https://yemen-nic.info/gover/althalea/brife/
[23] https://yementimes.com/damt-a-yemeni-oasis-archives2002-25-culture-3/, https://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/an-abecedary-of-sacred-springs-of-the-world-the-hot-springs-of-yemen-and-zimbabwe/
[24] https://scope24.net/en/local_news/8563.html
[25] OrientXXI: As of 2021, seven percent of landowners in Yemen controlled 56 percent of the land, and these wealthy, larger landholders were the most likely to cultivate qat while staple crops were mainly grown by smaller and poorer landholders.
[26] https://www.scidev.net/global/news/khat-cultivation-food-crisis-yemen/
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