UN aid workers, medical supplies reach Yemen
geneva — Humanitarian aid workers and medical supplies began to arrive in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Saturday, UN officials said, after the easing of a nearly three-week-old military blockade.
International aid groups have welcomed the decision to let aid in. About 7 million people face famine in Yemen and their survival depends on international assistance.
“First plane landed in Sanaa this morning with humanitarian aid workers,” WFP’s regional spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told Reuters in an email, while officials at Sanaa airport said two other UN flights had arrived on Saturday.
The United Nations children’s fund (Unicef) said one flight carried “over 15 tonnes” of vaccines that will cover some 600,000 children against diphtheria, tetanus and other diseases.
“The needs are huge and there is much more to do for #YemenChildren,” the world body said on its Twitter account.
Airport director Khaled Al Shayef said that apart from the vaccinations shipment a flight carrying eight employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross had also landed.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the armed Houthi militants’ movement in Yemen said on Wednesday it would allow aid in through the Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif, as well as UN flights to Sanaa. A spokesman for the US-backed coalition said in a statement issued on Friday that 82 permits have been issued for international aid missions since Novembre 4, both for the Sanaa airport and Hodeidah, the country’s main port where some 80 per cent of food supplies enter. “That includes issuing clearance for a ship today (Rena), carrying 5,500 Metric Tons of food supplies, to the port of Hodeidah,” coalition spokesman Colonel Turki Al Maliki said in a statement issued in a status update published by the Saudi embassy in Washington.
The coalition closed air, land and sea access in a move to stop the flow of arms to the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, from Iran.
The action came after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward Riyadh. —