Armed Conflict
When the Eritrean ultimatum ran out and the Yemeni military forces and civilians had not withdrawn, Eritrea launched an operation to take the island by force. The Eritreans used all seaworthy vessels that they had to land ground forces on the islands. Some Eritrean troops landed in fishing vessels and a commandeered Egyptian ferry. The Eritreans also used aircraft to ferry troops to the island. Eritrean forces attacked the Yemeni contingent and overran the entire island within three days of combat. During the fighting, a Russian merchant ship was damaged by Eritrean gunfire after being mistaken for a Yemeni naval vessel.
Read more about this topic: Hanish Islands Conflict
Famous quotes containing the words armed and/or conflict:
“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)