2 Saudi aircraft bring equipment to re-open Aden airport

 Two Saudi aircraft landed at Aden on Friday bringing equipment needed to re-open the city's airport four months after the Yemeni civil war shut it down, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV reported.

Aden International Airport was recaptured on July 14 by Gulf Arab-backed Yemeni forces as they drove Houthi forces out of the southern port city and much of the surrounding areas. 

Houthi fighters allied with army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh captured Aden in March and April at the outset of the country's four-month-old war, dealing a blow to President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi, an ally of Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Hadi and his aides fled to Riyadh as Houthi forces, who had seized the capital in September, closed in on Aden. In the wake of Aden's recapture, his ministers are slowly returning there.

If the airport resumes regular operations using the equipment carried by the plane that landed on Friday, then the city is expected to be able to expedite the import of badly needed emergency humanitarian aid.

Four months of air raids and civil war have killed more than 3,500 people in Yemen. Aden has suffered especially, with acute shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

Aden and the other southern provinces have been largely inaccessible to UN food aid, and about 13 million people - more than half the population - are thought to be in dire need of food.

A coalition of Arab states has been bombarding Houthi forces since late March in a bid to reinstate Hadi. It has also run training programmes for Yemeni soldiers loyal to Hadi and dropped arms to local forces fighting the Houthis.

The first plane to land at Aden airport since pro-Hadi government forces took over was Saudi, carrying weapons and military assistance. An aircraft from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), at dawn on Friday landed at Aden airport carrying humanitarian aid, Al Arabiya TV reported.

In the latest military action, coalition warplanes bombed targets across Yemen including the capital Sanaa on Friday, according to Houthi media Saba news and security sources.

They bombed several districts in Aden, including Dar Saad, Hael and al Khadra and targets in Marib, Shabwa, Abyan, Taiz and Amran provinces.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that civilian suffering in Yemen has reached "unprecedented levels," warning that intensifying violence in the country's south was hamstringing emergency medical aid.

The ICRC voiced particular concern over worsening clashes in the southern governorates of Taiz and Aden.

"The suffering of the civilian population has reached unprecedented levels," the ICRC's mission chief in Yemen, Antoine Grand, said in a statement.

In Aden and Taiz, "it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to reach affected areas, to evacuate the dead and the wounded and to provide life-saving assistance," Grand added.

The aid group urged both pro-Hadi forces and the Houthi rebels with their allies to let humanitarian groups work.

Heavy fighting forced a four-month closure of Aden's international airport, what had been a vital landing point for aid headed to embattled south Yemen.

The ICRC warned that as the fighting escalated, so too did "shortages of water, food and fuel across the country".

A boat chartered by the Red Cross and loaded with humanitarian supplies successfully docked in Aden's port on Thursday.

The group insisted aid should not be held hostage by the shifting situation on the ground.

"All sides must facilitate our access and respect our mandate," the ICRC said.

Source: Timesofoman