Solution Fishing in the Yemen

Yemen has been mired in a tense and occasionally violent political stand-off since the Houthi rebels' takeover of Sanaa on September 21st of last year. Thursday's resignations of Yemeni president Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and the country's cabinet has thrown Yemen's political transition – once hailed as a potential model for the region – into chaos. President Hadi has been a western ally in this strategically located country, also home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and another venue in which Saudi-Iranian regional contestation is played out. But now, Yemen's future has been plunged into renewed and intensified uncertainty. 

During this BCM discussion, the panellists will discuss the potential trajectories of the nation, putting the past week's events in the context of Yemen's troubled political transition and its 2011 uprising inspired by the wave of popular protests across the region. Is Yemen at risk of division and/or disintegration? And is there anything the international community can do to prevent its further descent into chaos, and what is the role of regional actors?  

Adam Baron is a Visiting Fellow at ECFR. Adam was previously based Sanaa, Yemen, from 2011-2014 where he worked as a journalist, reporting for the Christian Science Monitor, the Economist and McClatchy newspapers.

Abubakr Al-Shamahi is a British-Yemeni journalist at al-Araby al-Jadeed English. He lived in Yemen between 2013 and 2014. His work has been published by outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, Vice, and Asharq Al-Awsat, and he has appeared across BBC radio and television, as well as Al Jazeera and Huffington Post Live.

Thanos Petouris is a Yemen researcher and committee member of the British-Yemeni Society. His doctoral research at SOAS focuses on the emergence of national identities during periods of decolonisation, by using South Yemen as a historical case study. He has lived and worked in Yemen for extensive periods since 2005. 

Ellie Geranmayeh is a Policy Fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at ECFR.