• Wednesday, 25 December 2024

UN and international aid flights return to Yemen's Sana'a airport

UN and international aid flights return to Yemen's Sana'a airport
The United Nations and international aid agencies are allowed to land again at Sana'a airport in Yemen following a week-long closure, officials confirmed on Tuesday. The Houthi rebels who control Sana'a airport suspended UN aid flights to the airport following Saudi-led airstrikes. A source from the pro-Iranian Houthi government, who asked not to be named, told dpa that the UN and aid agency flights to the capital had resumed on Monday evening. The source said that "the airport was severely damaged by the coalition's bombing." The Houthis' General Authority of Civil Aviation and Meteorology also confirmed in a press statement that "flights of the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations operating in Yemen have resumed to Sana'a International Airport, after the defect in communications and navigational devices were temporarily fixed." A devastating power struggle, pitching the Saudi-backed Yemeni government against Iran-linked rebels, has gripped Yemen since late 2014. The conflict has pushed Yemen, already one of the Arab world's poorest countries, to the verge of famine and devastated the country's health facilities, in what the UN has described as the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.