Al Mukalla: A month after Al Houthi militiamen seized control of the Yemeni capital in September, Southern Yemen separatists took concrete steps to push for their independence from the north by setting up recruitment centres and training camps in Al Mukalla and Aden, two strategic port cities in the south.

Since the beginning of their peaceful uprising against the government in 2007, Southern Yemen separatists, also known as Hirak, have held continuous demonstrations in the south, hoisting the flag of the former South Yemen and shouting slogans against north Yemen demanding the termination of the unity deal that brought together former South and North Yemen in 1990.

The two campsites in the two cities became gathering points for thousands of separatists who urged the Al Houthis, who similarly suffered marginalisation by the former regime, to pay attention to their cause.

“There was political upheaval in the north, so we decided to strike to draw attention to our demands for liberation and independence,” Aidaroos Al Yaheri, a professor of Chemistry at Aden university told Gulf News.

Al Yaheri was among the earliest academics who pitched a tent for the educated elite in Aden to discuss how to build the south after the departure of the northerners.

Similarly, Al Mukalla’s campsite used to be a vibrant spot attracting people including tribal leaders and local government officials who showed up to express solidarity with the protesters.

Now, the two camps have gathered dust after the protesters deserted them and joined battlefields to fight off an Al Houthi incursion into the south.

The Al Houthi advance into the south sparked bloody confrontations in the heartlands of the separatists in Dhalae, Lahj, Shabwa, Abyan and Aden. Separatists say they are not fighting to reinstate Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi as president, but to revive the fight for southern independence.

The separatists say that even if the Al Houthis pull out, they will not stop fighting until their demand for independence is reached.

“We will not go back to our peaceful protests,” Al Yaheri says.

Separatists used to cooperate with the Al Houthis in the past, as they condemned the former regime’s crackdown on the south under Ali Abdullah Saleh.

However, the relationship has been replaced with hatred, since the Al Houthis started to attack southern cities.

“The Al Houthis showed their ugly face. They are more destructive than Saleh’s forces. They break into houses and wreak havoc in Aden,” Al Yaheri said.

Al Yaheri says, however, that immediate secession from the north is not a good idea given the upswing in violence.

“We want a scheduled transitional period under regional and international sponsorship.”

Yasser Al Yafae, the editor of Yafae News, an independent weekly newspaper based in Aden, said that the change in the separatists’ mood is mainly linked to the proliferation of arms.