Fatalities as airport in Yemen is hit by explosion
A LARGE explosion struck the airport in Aden, Yemen, shortly after a plane carrying the newly formed cabinet landed there yesterday, security officials said.
At least 22 people were killed and 50 were wounded in the blast. The source of the blast was not immediately clear and no group claimed responsibility for attacking the airport. Associated Press footage from the scene showed members of the government delegation disembarking as the blast shook the grounds. No-one on the government plane was hurt but many ministers rushed back inside the plane or ran down the stairs, seeking shelter.
Officials at the scene said they saw bodies lying on the ground and elsewhere at the airport.
Yemeni communication minister Naguib al-Awg, who was on the government plane, told the Associated Press that he heard two explosions, suggesting they were drone attacks.
“It would have been a disaster if the plane was bombed,” he said, insisting the plane was the target of the attack as it was supposed to land earlier. Yemeni prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and the other ministers were quickly whisked away from the airport to the Mashiq Palace in the city.
Mr Saeed tweeted that he and his cabinet were safe and unhurt. He called the explosions a “cowardly terrorist act” that was part of the war on “the Yemeni state and our great people”.
Images shared on social media from the scene showed rubble and broken glass strewn about near the airport building and at least two lifeless bodies, one of them charred, lying on the ground.
In another image, a man was trying to help another man whose clothes were torn to get up from the ground.
The ministers were returning to Aden after being sworn in last week as part of a reshuffle following a deal with rival southern separatists.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government has worked mostly from self-imposed exile in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, during the country’s years-long civil war.