Two years of state absence.. Who will save Shabwa Governorate from chaos and tribal revenge?

For about two years, Shabwa Governorate (southeast of Yemen) has been witnessing a massive security chaos, fighting, and non-stop tribal revenge, amidst a complete absence of the role of the local authority and state institutions. Hardly a day goes by without tribal clashes, criminal killings, or attacks on citizens’ property, without there being a deterrent to the perpetrators of these crimes and violations.

Tribal crimes and conflicts have escalated in Shabwa since August 2022, after military formations affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council imposed their control over the governorate with the support of the UAE following armed confrontations, including launching air strikes against government military and security forces that were forced to withdraw from the city of Ataq, the governorate’s capital, and other directorates.

This had disastrous consequences for civil and societal peace, as these irregular military formations worked to undermine the security and judicial establishment, and ended any presence of the state, so that the oil-rich governorate entered a state of chaos, security chaos and tribal fighting, after it had witnessed stability and remarkable development movement in the three years preceding the Transitional Council’s control over the governorate.

Tribal conflicts and chaos of formations

The incidents of armed confrontations and tribal revenge in Shabwa are old and ongoing. The most prominent of these recently were the clashes between the Al-Ahmed bin Fareed and Al-Abu Bakr bin Fareed tribes in the As-Saeed Directorate, which continued for days at the beginning of this August, after tribal gunmen opened fire on the car of the Director General of the As-Saeed Directorate, Sheikh Abu Bakr bin Fareed, which resulted in the injury of two of his companions, one of whom died of his injuries.

Since the beginning of this year, "Yemeni Youth Net" has monitored the fall of 80 victims, including those killed and wounded, resulting from criminal crimes, tribal feuds, and armed clashes, not to mention the violations, attacks, and murders committed by the Giants Forces and Shabwa Defense Forces affiliated with the separatist Transitional Council, which occur on a daily basis without counting them.

There are many reasons behind the increasing cases of fighting and chaos witnessed in Shabwa Governorate, according to Mohsen Al-Hajj, advisor to the governor of Shabwa, who said that the most prominent of them is “the negligence of the local authority regarding these issues and the failure of the security services to play their role in establishing security and stability.”

Al-Hajj added to "Yemeni Youth Net" that among the reasons is also "the duplication that occurred in piling up dozens of military brigades in Shabwa coming from outside the governorate, which caused the security services inside the governorate to be hindered from carrying out their role."

He continued: "For example, you find brigades from the Giants Forces, which are brigades brought from outside Shabwa, you find them controlling a specific directorate or several directorates. They neither played a role in establishing security and stability, nor did they leave the security services from within the governorate to carry out the role assigned to them."

Al-Hajj explained that this “priority often plays the role and tasks of tribal sheikhs in concluding a peace or truce, and sometimes you see the brigade commander appointing himself as a tribal sheikh and issuing martial law between the tribes, but this peace or truce quickly collapses and fighting between the tribes is renewed without those brigades moving a finger.”

Absence of local authority

The laxity of the local authority leadership in Shabwa, and the absence of state security and judicial institutions, opened the way for the return of the phenomenon of blood feuds, tribal fighting and criminal crimes on a daily basis, as the advisor to the governor of Shabwa confirms that many blood feud cases have been accumulating for several years.

Al-Hajj added to "Yemeni Youth Net" that during the term of the former governor, "Mohammed bin Adio" (which lasted for about three years), the role of the security and judicial apparatuses was activated, which in turn limited the expansion of the fighting and conflict currently taking place in the governorate.

Al-Hajj stressed that the role of the local authority in Shabwa province, led by Awad bin Al-Wazir Al-Awlaki, is "extremely negative towards these issues, and the issues of the province in general." Similarly, the head of the Yazan Forum for Reducing Revenge, Mohammed Al-Hamed, stressed that the blood feuds in Shabwa are old and have been ongoing for years, noting that many of them are dormant and there is no reconciliation in them.

Al-Hamed told "Yemeni Youth Net", "There are some places in Shabwa Governorate where armed confrontations do not stop and various types of weapons are used, and they have become forgotten wars, such as the Al-Hanak area and some areas of the Nisab Directorate."

What is the solution?

The head of the Yazan Forum for Reducing Revenge, Mohammed Al-Hamed, believes that resolving tribal revenge issues in Shabwa Governorate “requires excellent security work,” noting that successive governments in this country have ignored carrying out security work.

He added: "When state institutions work, citizens resort to the security and judicial apparatuses to resolve their issues, but in the absence of the security and judicial institutions, society and the tribe return to defending itself or taking revenge in its own way," calling for the need to carry out multiple awareness campaigns, and directing the unification of sermons in the mosques and prayer halls of the governorate to raise awareness of the danger of tribal revenge on societies.

For his part, Mohsen Al-Hajj stressed that “blood feuds are a rampant scourge that requires great efforts, capabilities, and effective security and judicial institutions to stop any new blood feuds and address past issues,” stressing that maintaining security and ending tribal fighting and chaos “requires a strong central state that adopts the treatment of blood feud issues and many of the social issues that Yemeni society suffers from.”