Protest Marking 5th Anniversary of Closure of Sana’a International Airport

The Director of Sana’a Airport, Khaled Al-Shaif, explained that the closure of the airport caused a major humanitarian disaster, according to the testimony of the United Nations, which did nothing to lift the ban on the airport that receives UN planes on a daily basis.

He confirmed the airport’s technical readiness to receive all civil flights, pointing out that Sana’a Airport is the main artery that serves more than 80 percent of the population of Yemen and the first gateway to the Republic of Yemen.

A statement issued by the protest, read by the Authority’s spokesperson, Director of Air Transport, Dr. Mazen Ghanem, condemned the continued closure of Sana’a International Airport to civilian flights since August 9, 2016. It stressed that closing the airport is in contravention of all international laws and treaties, a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and international humanitarian law.

The statement pointed out that the continued closure of Sanaa Airport to civilian flights for more than five years has exacerbated the humanitarian situation, resulting in the death of thousands of patients suffering from incurable diseases, impeding the movement of vital supplies of medicine and food, and turning Yemen into a large prison.

The statement stated that the Ministry of Health’s statistics indicate the death of more than 95,000 patients who urgently needed to travel for treatment abroad, and more than 480,000 patients who urgently need to travel in a way that does not accept delay, more than 30 of them die every day.

According to the statement, statistics indicate that more than 71,000 patients with cancerous tumors are at risk of certain death, and more than 8000 patients with kidney failure need kidney transplants to save their lives, more than a million patients are threatened with death as a result of the lack of medicines for incurable and chronic diseases, and the lack of solutions and medical supplies.

The statement praised the humanitarian role played by activists abroad and free people around the world to demand the reopening of the airport and the resumption of civilian flights, praising the role of some international organizations that considered closing the airport an unforgivable crime and described the past five years as a comprehensive mass death penalty for Yemenis.