Exploring the Emirati Extraction of Gold from Southern Yemen
Yemen’s gold is a crucial part of the United Arab Emirates’ involvement in the war-torn country.
Since 2015, a Saudi Arabian-led coalition has been involved in the ongoing conflict in Yemen, yet one of the members of the coalition, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been more independent regarding its objectives in the war-torn country.
This became apparent in 2017, when the Emiratis backed the creation of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen, a faction under then President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The UAE has supported pro-governmental forces against the insurgent Houthis since 2015, in comparison to Saudi Arabia, who has been more anti-Houthi than it has been pro-government (Eleftheriadou, 2021) following the previous president’s appeal to sectarian identities to guarantee the involvement of the surrounding Gulf nations (Darwich, 2018).
To some, this divergence has been so that the UAE can establish a foothold in the Red Sea and gain better access to the Horn of Africa but it extends beyond this too to the natural resources of Yemen (Ragab, 2017).
Yemen’s Gold Resources
The Emirati-backed STC has taken control of large swathes of southern Yemen since the division of the pro-Hadi forces in recent years and the UAE’s interest here is, as mentioned, in part to do with securing its coastline and therefore trade routes past Yemen (ICG, 2021).
But, upon exploration of the different regions where gold deposits have been discovered in Yemen (Yemen Ministry of Oil and Minerals, 2019), the purity of those gold deposits has often been highest in the south. For example, the UAE’s control of the area surrounding Al-Mukalla is crucial, since Thani Dubai Mining’s Wadi Meddan mine is nearby, with the concession being measured to have around 7.3t of confirmed and 28.9t of inferred gold resources (USGS, 2012). This, in part, helps to explain the UAE’s development of an independent foreign policy in the region, when in 2016 they began to take over the security operations of the area surrounding Al-Mukalla (Jalal, 2024).
Indeed, the Yemeni government has conducted investigations into further mining opportunities in the governorates of Aden and Hadhramaut (Barran Press, 2024), and while Canadian Cantex’s Al-Hariqah operation is currently under force majeure due to the conflict, they still are technically in operation.
But, with only three active gold mines in Yemen in 2022 (Puri-Mirza, 2024), two of which are controlled by Thani Dubai Mining, the UAE’s interests are intrinsically linked with the lucrativeness of Yemen’s precious metals industry.
The UAE: a Gold Capital?
Since 2004, the UAE has fluctuated somewhat in its role as Yemen’s primary gold export. From 2015, the main opposition to this has been Oman, but the UAE’s profitability in the region has remained relatively stable, peaking in 2017 when Yemeni gold exports to the UAE were valued at $374 million.
2011’s drop off would perhaps be seen as alarming but the gold exports total that year only reached $5.25 million likely due to the trading risks associated with the political uncertainty of the future of Yemen (Sathish, 2011).
Given the steady flow of gold from both the Yemeni market – averaging $173 million a year – and from Sudan (Soliman & Baldo, 2025) it is no surprise that the UAE has emerged as one of the pre-eminent gold traders globally.
Though initially seen as a source of hope for peace in Yemen (Carlisle, 2010), the involvement of regional actors in the North African country can largely be attributed to its considerable amounts of gold. Nevertheless, any solution to Yemen’s civil war will require a strong regional – in particular Emirati – presence, both in the peace talks and in the post-war re-building of the country (Johnsen, 2022).
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