They talk about their lives on the island of Socotra, in a language whose origins are lost in time—unchanged for centuries and understood today by fewer people than live in Ames, Iowa.

The construction comes as the presence of troops from the Emirates in the Socotra island chain to which Abd al-Kuri belongs — and that of the separatist force it backs in southern Yemen — have ...

The largest of these, Socotra Island, stretches 132 kilometers long and 42 kilometers wide at its broadest point. Its isolation—about 380 kilometers south of the Arabian Peninsula and 240 ...