08 May 2017•Update: 08 May 2017
By Mubarak Mohamed
HADHRAMAUT, Yemen
The Yemeni army on Monday declared a temporary curfew and state of emergency in a part of the eastern Hadhramaut province, according to a statement issued by military commanders and local authorities in Hadhramaut.
The move, which applies to Hadhramaut’s Dawan directorate, also reportedly involves the deployment of fresh military reinforcements to the area.
"With a view to guaranteeing local security, we have been obliged to impose a state of emergency in Dawan," read a statement issued jointly by the army’s Hadhramaut-based Second Military Zone Command and local authorities in the Dawan directorate.
Both the state of emergency and the accompanying nighttime curfew, which the army insists are only temporary, went into effect on Monday.
On Monday morning, substantial military reinforcements -- trained by a Saudi-led Arab coalition -- arrived on Dawan’s outskirts, according to a local government official who spoke to Anadolu Agency anonymously due to the issue’s sensitivity.
Recent months have seen an uptick in attacks -- said to have been claimed by Al-Qaeda -- in Hadhramaut’s Dawan and Al-Dulayah directorates.
The latest of these occurred Sunday night when an army camp in the latter directorate was attacked by militants. No casualties were reported as a result of the attack.
Since April of last year, the Yemeni army -- backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition -- has managed to retake a number of cities in Hadhramaut from Al-Qaeda, including Port Mukalla, the provincial capital.
Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of chaos since 2014, when the Shia Houthi militia and its allies overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country.
