SANA’A (Dispatches) –
Yemen said Tuesday it has allowed the temporary resumption of UN aid flights into the capital Sana’a, a week after a halt due to Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.
“The civil aviation authority announces the resumption of UN and other organization flights into Sana’a airport on a temporary basis,” Yemen’s al-Masirah television reported.
“The foreign ministry was contacted to notify the UN and all international organizations that Sana’a airport was ready to receive flights.”
The airport has been closed to civilian flights since 2015, but UN planes have been permitted to land there.
On December 20, the Saudi-led collation targeted the airport, causing severe damage to the facility and a halt to its flights.
The Saudi-led coalition claimed that Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement was involved in efforts aimed at “militarizing” the airport in Sana’a.
The airport, the coalition added, was being turned into the “main center for launching ballistic missiles and drones” towards the Saudi kingdom.
The allegations came as the coalition has intensified its attacks against the Yemeni capital.
Hezbollah has brushed off Saudi allegations of its “involvement” in Yemen.
In a brief statement on Monday, the movement described the “so-called evidence of Hezbollah’s role in Yemen” as “insignificant and ridiculous.”
The allegations “do not warrant a response,” the movement added.
Khaled al-Shayef, director general of Sana’a airport, said the latest Saudi air raids completely destroyed the aviation school and the quarantine building, as well as hangars and warehouses where the humanitarian aid shipments to the Yemeni people are kept.
Since the closure of the airport, more than 100,000 patients, who had been denied travel abroad for treatment, have died, he told IRNA, warning that more patients will lose their lives or face permanent disabilities if the siege on Yemen continues.
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on its southern neighbor in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allied states and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and several Western states.
The aim was to return to power the former Riyadh-backed regime and crush the popular Ansarullah movement.
The war has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Last month, a United Nations Development Programme report said the war would have claimed 377,000 lives by the end of this year through both direct and indirect impacts.