ADEN/DUBAI, Oct 28 (Reuters) – Yemen’s Houthis attacked Aden airport on Wednesday, government officials said, after the Iran-aligned group warned people to evacuate the facility as fighting escalated in the impoverished country caught in the wider Middle East conflict.
Residents in the southern port city, where the internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government is based, said they heard an explosion near the airport, a humanitarian lifeline and the main gateway to southern Yemen.
Air traffic was halted after the strike, two transport ministry officials told Reuters. An aid source said some UN staff left the airport shortly before the attack and no one was hurt.
Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a post on X that the evacuation warning was prompted by what he said was the presence of a Saudi military cargo aircraft delivering weapons.
There was no immediate comment from Saudi authorities.
The Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa and most of northwestern Yemen, have repeatedly targeted Aden airport in the past. Residents said explosions had also been heard elsewhere in the city before the warning was issued.
The International Organization for Migration said that its personnel travelling through Aden were safe and accounted for after reports of an attack.
FIGHTING ESCALATES
The attack comes as fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s government has intensified in recent weeks, opening a volatile new front in the wider US-Israeli war on Iran.
Last month, Houthi forces advanced towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most strategically important shipping routes, which lies opposite the Strait of Hormuz across the Arabian Peninsula.
Government forces have since pushed to retake territory on the Red Sea coast in a move that could loosen the Houthis’ grip on the chokepoint, while the coalition has stepped up strikes against Houthi positions in response to the group’s escalating attacks on Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said that one of its aircraft was about to take off from Aden airport a few days ago when humanitarian workers were told to seek shelter as a missile struck nearby.
“Aden airport is the main entry point for humanitarian workers, supplies and medical equipment to the southern parts of Yemen, and safe access to it is crucial,” the organisation said in a statement.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that 14 people were killed and 15 others were injured in what it described as a Saudi attack on the northern Yemeni Jawf region.
The renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that had largely halted major attacks in the conflict, which began after the Houthis drove the government from Sanaa in 2014.
Aid agencies warn the latest violence is rapidly worsening conditions in a country already suffering from one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
(Reporting by Reyam Mokhashef, Mohammed Ghobari, Nayera Abdallah, and Muhammad Al Gebaly; Additional reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Ros Russell)
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