evidence: Days into COP28 in Dubai, one little-known archipelago has come into sharp relief: Socotra. Composed of four small Yemeni islands, Socotra has been in the sights of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ever since the civil war in Yemen erupted in September 2014. The UAE has been part of the Saudi-led coalition – backed logistically by the United States – against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels since March 2015, but Socotra has been spared by the civil war and Houthis thus far. [...] In 2011-12, protests in Hadiboh, the island’s largest town – remarkably recounted by the anthropologist Nathalie Peutz – echoed the slogans heard in the Yemeni cities of Sana’a and Taiz calling for political reform and the end of the regime and its corruption. Internet access has since been on the rise, with locals shifting into two camps: those claiming for a Socotran governorate, and those demanding autonomy from the central government. Little by little, political awareness took root. Competing councils opposed official authorities, perceived as corrupt and inefficient: these councils mirrored the party politics’ divisions of the mainland. In 2013, Socotra became a governorate on its own, since it was previously under the administrative authority of Hadhramawt (Eastern Yemen) and, before, the Southern port city of Aden.