Yemen rebels close Sanaa airport over virus

The Iran-allied rebels announced "the temporary halting of all passenger flights" for two weeks, starting on Saturday.

1 min read

14 March, 2020

Yemen has not to date announced any cases of the COVID-19 illness [Getty]

Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Saturday they would suspend passenger flights in and out of Sanaa airport for two weeks to prevent the introduction of novel coronavirus.

A Saudi-led military coalition battling the rebels has long controlled Yemen's airspace and the capital's airport had served only rare United Nations and humanitarian flights since 2016.

But the Iran-allied insurgents announced "the temporary halting of all passenger flights" for two weeks, starting on Saturday.

Yemen has not to date announced any cases of the COVID-19 illness, but the poor state of the country's health infrastructure after five years of war would mean that such an outbreak could be catastrophic.

Read also: Yemen in Focus: Financial reports expose millions of dollars in lavish UN 'corruption' budget

Yemen has over three million displaced people and over a third of the population needs humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations, which calls the country's crisis the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

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