Aden (South24)

An informed source told South24 Center that members of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) delegation residing in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, signed an official request in May to the Saudi side to allow them to return to the capital, Aden, but have not received a final response so far.

The source said the Saudi side informed the signatories of the request that “the file is under review,” noting that members of the delegation have been staying in Riyadh for months following talks with Saudi officials over developments in Hadramout Governorate.

One member of the delegation told South24 Center: “We are still being held. We have not been allowed to return so far.”

A source close to the delegation published a list of the names of those who signed the request. The list included:

Dr. Abdulnasser Ahmed Ali Al-Wali.

Mohammed Abdullah Nasser Al-Ghaithi.

Rajeh Saeed Ali Bakrit.

Dr. Salem Hussein Zain Al-Shabhi.

Eng. Manea Yaslam Saleh bin Yameen Al-Nahdi.

Eng. Mohammed Nasser Abadi Abdulqawi.

Dr. Mohammed Saeed Hassan Al-Zaouri.

Mansour Zaid Haidara Manea.

Eng. Nizar Nasser Ali Haitham.

Mohammed Ahmed Nasser.

Yahya Ghaleb Ahmed Al-Saqaldi.

Mujahid Abushawareb Issa bin Afrar.

Anwar Ali Yahya Hassan Al-Omari.

Bassam Ahmed Abubakr Al-Muflihi.

Mohsen Ali Obaid Hassan.

Dr. Aidarous Mohsen Al-Yahri.

Dr. Mohammed Saree Ali Basardah.

Dr. Saad Mohammed Saad Mohammed.

Dr. Mahmoud Shaif Hussein Hassan.

Dr. Saleh Mohsen Al-Hajj.

Fadhl Mohammed Hussein Al-Jaadi.

Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Ali Al-Jafri.

Lawyer Ali Haitham Al-Gharib.

The informed source added that a number of delegation members were subjected to individual interrogations upon their arrival in Riyadh, and that their phones were confiscated for several days, before political pressure was exerted on the Southern Transitional Council delegation, ending with the announcement of the dissolution of the Council and its bodies last January.

The dissolution decision was rejected by the bodies of the Southern Transitional Council in South Yemen, as well as by a popular rejection reflected in a series of major mass events held across Southern cities over the past months.

These developments come as an extension of the crisis that erupted in early 2026, following Saudi airstrikes on positions of the Southern forces in Hadramout and Al-Mahra, and the announcement by Southern Transitional Council President Aidarous Al-Zubaidi from Aden on January 2 that a two-year transitional phase had begun, followed by the issuance of a constitutional declaration to regulate this path.

South24 Center had previously noted in its annual report that Riyadh ignored both declarations and insisted that a delegation from the Council come to Riyadh “for understandings,” before several members of the delegation, which arrived without its president, announced the dissolution of the Council and its bodies. This came after Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi decided to revoke Al-Zubaidi’s membership and refer him to prosecution on charges including high treason.

The background to the crisis dates back to the escalation witnessed in Hadramout and Al-Mahra in late December, following movements by Southern forces in Wadi Hadramout and Al-Mahra and their insistence on not withdrawing without guarantees. 

Riyadh later intervened politically and militarily to push for rearranging the situation there, which ended with the withdrawal of Southern forces from the two governorates and the United Arab Emirates’ exit from the scene there.