Hanish Islands conflict
dispute between Yemen and Eritrea
The Hanish Islands conflict was a dispute between Yemen and Eritrea over the island of Greater Hanish in the Red Sea, one of the largest in the then disputed Zukur-Hanish archipelago. Fighting took place over three days from 15 to 17 December 1995. In 1998, the Permanent Court of Arbitration determined that the territory belonged to Yemen.
Background
The Hanish archipelago is on the southern side of the Red Sea near Bab-el-Mandeb. The archipelago mainly consists of three main islands. Since the time of the British protectorate of Aden, the islands had generally been regarded as part of Yemen.
After being granted independence and membership of the United Nations, the new Eritrean government started negotiations with Yemen over the status of the archipelago. Two rounds of talks had taken place before the invasion:
Gutmann [French mediator] produced an Agreement on Principles, which Eritrea and Yemen signed on 21 May. The two sides agreed to resort to arbitration, to refrain from using force and to abide by the verdict of an arbitration tribunal. The French mediation effort almost collapsed when on 10 August, Eritrean forces occupied Hanish al-Saghir.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hanish Islands conflict” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.