The loss of the war in 1994 torpedoed the aspirations of southern independence and led to the occupation of the southern territories. The Salih regime took the following actions to permanently marginalize, destabilize and suppress the south:

1. After the war, the entire South Yemeni army was dissolved. The military personnel, including soldiers and officers, were forced into retirement.
2. Hundreds of thousands of employees were affected. Likewise, police and civil servants were forcibly retired. High state ranks in the south, such as governor positions, were granted to North Yemenis.
3. Factories which had been state property of the PDRY were looted and plundered, or sold below price to people loyal to the regime.
4. Factory workers lost their jobs.
5. Besides the numerous factories that had to cease their operations, regime supporters and high-ranking officers of the Salih regime confiscated land equivalent to the size of the state of Bahrain.
6. Multitudes of South Yemenis were dispossessed and their civil rights stolen.

Aden, the capital of the PDRY – once a flourishing port city with one of the most significant harbors in the world in the 1950s (second only to New York) – was proclaimed the economic capital of the unified country. However, the promises of economic prosperity were not fulfilled, and the harbor business operated far below its capabilities. Moreover, investment in infrastructure failed to appear. Large scale corruption discouraged investment in the commercial and economic sector.

Northern elites became shareholders in any investment in the south, and they profited from any such business that existed. Because of the discontinuation of operations in numerous factories, the private sector has been so weakened that, to this day, scarcely any employment is available. A majority of the southern population is unemployed today. Particularly among young people, the unemployment rate is very high. Furthermore, the Salih regime has profited for more than two decades from the exploitation of southern oil.

Approximately 80 percent of oil in Yemen is situated in the southern governorates of Hadramawt and Shabwa. The local population are excluded from profits from the oil; however, they do suffer from the consequences of oil exploitation, such as poisoned ground water. International companies which produced oil in the south paid enormous sums to gain oil concessions from the Salih regime. Moreover, North Yemeni generals charged for the protection of the oil companies and their facilities. They made millions in profit

Due to the numerous grievances in South Yemen, South Yemenis began to resist the occupation after the war in 1994. On January 13, 2006, on the occasion of the commemoration of the 1986 war, South Yemenis initiated a reconciliation process. They made a plea for reconciliation and forgiveness amongst the population in the south. This reconciliation process was seen as a precondition to joint resistance against the regime of the north and its longstanding marginalization of the south. In 2007, the Southern Movement (al-hirak al-janubi) emerged out of this group who initiated the reconciliation process. At that time, the movement principally consisted of forced retirees from the army and the civil service, their children and young unemployed people. Their claims were mainly of a socio-economic nature. They demonstrated for their reemployment, higher pensions, or the creation of jobs. The government of Ali Abdallah Salih repressively responded to the movement. State
security forces quelled the protests. People were killed, arrested, and abducted. Because of the brutality of the regime, the peaceful protest movement gained momentum and found increasing solidarity from the population. To this day, the movement continues to organize rallies and events throughout the entire territory of South Yemen.

Yemenis hoped that the National Dialogue Conference, which the transitional process (Initiative of the Gulf Cooperation Council) initiated in 2011, and held in Sanaa in 2013/14, would lead to a fair solution of the southern cause. One of the nine discussion groups of the conference dealt exclusively with the southern cause. Relevant topics, such as the seizure of southern land and the forced retirement of hundreds of thousands of South Yemenis, were made subjects of discussion and their relevance for the peace process recognized. Thereupon, two commissions were established which dealt with the victims of land grabbing and forced retirement in South Yemen, tasked with finding solutions for compensation.

The work of these commissions was interrupted by the war that began in 2015 in Yemen. The Initiative of the Gulf Cooperation Council generally envisaged the only solution to be a united Yemen. Therefore, significant figures of the Southern Movement did not participate in the talks. During the conference, the dominance of the elites of Sanaa became apparent, whereupon the small faction of Southern Movement representatives renounced its participation in the dialogue. The decision of President Hadi to restructure Yemen into six federal regions and, thereby, separate South Yemen into two regions (Aden and Hadramawt), was opposed in South Yemen. The Southern Movement rejected the decision, which had been made outside of the conference process, and mass protests followed.

When, in the course of the Yemen war in 2015, the Houthi militias, with the support of army entities under the leadership of former President Ali Abdallah Salih, invaded South Yemen, the so-called “Southern Resistance” emerged in South Yemen, supported by adherents of the Southern Movement. With the assistance of the Arab military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Southern Resistance succeeded, after a three-month siege, to push back the Houthis and  Salih’s forces from South Yemen. Thereby, they liberated the territory of South Yemen. The Southern Transitional Council emerged from the Southern Resistance and the Southern Movement in 2017. The council advocates for the recovery of South Yemen’s independence and for the interests of South Yemenis