Children ride in the trunk of a car on a flooded street in Sanaa, Yemen August 1, 2016. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

The largest island, also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies some 240 kilometres (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres (240 mi) south of the Arabian Peninsula. The island is very isolated and through the process of speciation, a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. It has been described as the most alien-looking place on Earth. The island measures 132 kilometres (82 mi) in length and 49.7 kilometres (30.9 mi) in width.

A woman plays billiards during a local championship at a sports hall in Yemen's capital Sanaa on December 16, 2019. (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP Photo)

Fruit vendors chew qat, a mild stimulant, amid concerns of the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a fruit market in Sanaa, Yemen on June 1, 2020. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

Children riding on donkeys queue to fill their jerrycans with water from a cistern at a make-shift camp for the internally displaced in Yemen's northern Hajjah province on July 12, 2021, amidst an extreme heat wave and severe water shortage. (Photo by Essa Ahmed/AFP Photo)

An armed demonstrator lifting a Palestinian and Yemeni flags gestures during an anti-Israel and anti-US rally in the Huthi-controlled capital Sanaa on January 19, 2024, protesting the US designation of Yemen's Huthi rebels as “terrorists”, after a series of attacks on Red Sea shipping amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant Hamas group in Gaza. (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP Photo)

A farmer stands near pumpkins on display on the side of a road near Sanaa, Yemen on February 15, 2025. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

People carry the body of a man they uncovered from under the rubble of houses destroyed by Saudi airstrikes in the old city of Sanaa, Yemen, Friday, June 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)