Former Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled house arrest by Houthi rebels and spent his last years in Saudi Arabia, has died, according to a statement from the Yemeni presidency.
State-run Yemeni television reported Hadi died at his residence in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday (19 June 2025) at the age of 80, without providing further details.
Hadi was the internationally recognised president, leading a fractured government largely from abroad for eight years as the country descended into civil war and famine, before resigning in 2022.
Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council – the governing body of Yemen's internationally recognised government – said Hadi believed in the Yemeni people’s “right to a just, free state and dignity.”
“He led the fight to defend the republican system,” al-Alimi wrote on X.
The Yemeni government declared three days of national mourning, with flags flown at half-mast.
Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia in 2015 when war erupted between the Iran-backed Houthi forces – which had driven the government from the capital Sanaa – and a Saudi-led coalition.
He transferred power – reportedly under Saudi pressure – to the newly formed Presidential Leadership Council in April 2022, as Yemen entered a UN-brokered ceasefire.
Yemen remains divided between the Houthi-controlled north and the government-run south, which comprises a collection of different factions.
Although the ceasefire has largely held, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of people through direct and indirect causes. Last year, the United Nations said 19.5 million people needed aid.
Hadi assumed the presidency in 2012 after a long stint as vice president to Ali Abdullah Saleh, who reluctantly ended 33 years in power during the Arab Spring protests.
Hadi, a career military officer, became the sole candidate in an election he won with 99.8 percent of the vote.
His presidency was plagued by instability, with rivals accusing him of favouring the oil-rich eastern provinces to the detriment of Houthi-controlled mountainous central regions.
After the Houthis seized the capital in 2014, they placed Hadi under house arrest in early 2015. He escaped that February.
Hadi is survived by his wife, Hala, and six children.
