Aden airport reopens days after deadly Yemen attack

By AFP - Jan 03,2021 - Last updated at Jan 03,2021

A man walks to the airport building in Yemen’s southern city of Aden on Sunday, as activity resumes after explosions rocked the building on December 30, killing or injuring dozens of people (AFP photo)

ADEN — The airport of Yemen’s second city Aden reopened on Sunday, days after 26 people were killed there in deadly blasts apparently targeting the country’s new government.

A plane of the national carrier Yemenia from Khartoum was the first to land on Sunday as services resumed after Wednesday’s explosions which occurred as Cabinet minister arrived from Saudi Arabia.

No side has yet claimed the attack but Yemeni government officials were quick to blame northern-based Houthi rebels.

AFP video footage on Sunday showed the airport building cleared of the broken glass and rubble the two blasts had caused.

“The airport is back up and running and things are going very smoothly,” airport spokesman Adel Hamran told AFP.

Those killed on Wednesday included three International Committee for the Red Cross staffers and a minister’s aide. No ministers were harmed.

AFP footage on Wednesday showed what appears to be a missile strike followed by a ball of intense flames, in part of the airport which moments before had been packed with crowds.

The Houthis seized Yemen’s northern capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led intervention the following year.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have since been killed and millions displaced in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.Yemen’s new government was formed under a Riyadh-sponsored power sharing agreement between ministers loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and supporters of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council.

Both are technically fighting the Houthis, but the STC has sought to restore South Yemen’s independence from the north after they were unified in 1990.

Secessionists and forces loyal to the central government have sporadically clashed in and around Aden.

The Cabinet had arrived in Aden days after being sworn in by Hadi in Saudi Arabia.

It convened for the first time in Aden the day after the attack, holding a moment of silence for those killed in the attack.

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