Suffering from death due to the closure of Sana’a International Airport

The closure of the Sana’a airport by the Saudi-Emirati coalition left many tragedies. The story of Yemeni citizen Ahmed Al-Ajl, who was returning from the United States of America to his country before the outbreak of the war to visit his sick mother, is one of thousands of stories.

Ahmed stayed in Yemen for months away from his wife and six children residing in America after the death of his mother, and with the outbreak of the war, his health deteriorated, especially since he was suffering from heart disease, according to his relatives.

When he decided to travel outside Yemen for treatment and return to America, Sanaa airport was closed by a decision by the coalition, and his health did not allow him to travel for long hours and arduous roads to Aden airport, according to doctors.

Mohamed Antar, a relative of Ahmed, told Al-Jazeera Net that the doctors confirmed that Ahmed’s heart muscle was only working at 25%, which prevented him from traveling and enduring the hardships of moving between governorates and reaching Aden or Seiyun airports to travel abroad

 

Suffering and conquering

 

At a time when Ahmed was suffering in Sana’a, his wife and 6 of his children were waiting for him in America, but the death was faster.

Ahmed Al-Ajl, a holder of US citizenship, died on December 29, 2018, in a country where the health system collapsed as a result of the war, and the Saudi-Emirati coalition closed his escape ports and thousands of Yemenis who were prevented from traveling abroad.

“We could not do anything for him.” So with bitterness and helplessness, Mohamed Antar spoke with regret for their inability to take Ahmed out on the United Nations trips back to America.

Ahmed did not fly in the sky looking for escape doors in a country whose airports were closed by force. Rather, he returned to his village in Al-Nadira District, Ibb Governorate, with a lifeless body carried on broken shoulders to open the gates of the sky for him before the response of the coalition leadership.

This Cairo suffering is nothing but a description of the sad details of the many Yemenis threatened by disease and arrested by military points of the conflicting parties, from public roads while traveling to Aden or Seiyun, not because of anything they committed except for their regional or family affiliations.

Muhammad Mohsen, a passenger car driver, says that they spend nearly 24 hours traveling from Sanaa to Seiyun airport because of the stops at security points and the frequent inspection procedures, which created suffering for the elderly and sick travelers.

According to Muhammad, some travelers were not continuing their journey with them because they were detained at security points, for reasons that were mostly related to their regional affiliations.

There are hundreds of deaths documented by the medical authorities due to the closure of the airport in their faces (Al-Jazeera)

 

Dead and arrested

 

Abdul Rashid Al-Faqih, Executive Director of Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, considers that the closure of Sana’a airport did not achieve any military advantage, as much as its catastrophic effects affected thousands of civilians, on top of them the sick, and the suffering of people multiplied with the multi-faceted targeting of the collapsed health sector that is operating at its minimum capacity, which led Hundreds of patients died, for whom travel could have saved their lives.

 

According to al-Faqih, there are hundreds of deaths documented by the medical authorities due to the airport being closed in their faces, and Mwatana also documented dozens of detention incidents of civilian travelers to and from Seiyun airport, practices aimed at terrorizing people and denying them their right to movement and treatment.

 

He confirms that Mwatana Organization has repeatedly raised the demand to open Sana’a airport to commercial flights to the international community and put it in the form of the catastrophic effects of the continued closure, and highlights this problem through reports and data of the organization.

 

He pledges to continue to press their partners around the world until the Saudi-UAE alliance yields to this urgent humanitarian demand.

 

Al-Faqih stresses the need for the international community to shoulder its responsibilities to impose the opening of Sana’a International Airport to commercial flights, and to hold the Saudi-Emirati coalition accountable for the enormous humanitarian effects of closing the airport over the past years.

 

Isolation and limitations

For his part, Director General of Air Transport in Sana’a, Mazen Ghanem, spoke to Al-Jazeera Net about the international inability to lift the air blockade on Sana’a International Airport.

Ghanem explained that the countries of the “coalition of aggression” made an illegal and inhuman decision by the Saudi Ministry of Defense to suspend the movement of flights to and from Sanaa Airport, the main safe artery for the transportation of Yemeni citizens, for humanitarian and civil flights, starting August 9, 2016, until further notice.

 

He considered that this measure isolates the country, restricts the freedom of millions of Yemenis, and disrupts the navigation movement in the face of vital and commercial supplies necessary for citizens.

 

Ghanem says that the continued imposition of the air blockade in front of the sight and hearing of the United Nations and international organizations is contrary to all norms, international treaties and covenants, and contrary to the provisions of the Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Chicago Convention 1944.

He confirms that this ban has exacerbated the humanitarian situation and caused a catastrophic tragedy for Yemenis at home and abroad, citing statistics of the Ministry of Health in Sana’a indicating the death of more than 80 thousand patients who were in urgent need of travel for treatment abroad, and the presence of more than 65 thousand patients with cancerous tumors.

 

Statistics from the Ministry of Health indicate that there are 450,000 patients in urgent need to travel for treatment abroad, of whom about 30 cases die every day, in addition to 8,000 patients with kidney failure needing urgent kidney transplants abroad, according to Ghanem.

 

Abdul Rashid Al-Faqih, Executive Director of Mwatana Organization for Human Rights (Al-Jazeera)

 

More than a million patients are at risk

 

The Houthi-affiliated Sanaa government speaks of more than one million patients who are threatened with death due to the lack of many medicines for incurable and chronic diseases, as well as solutions and medical supplies that are transported by air.

Ghanem expressed the Ministry of Transport’s denunciations of the continued inability of the United Nations to fulfill its pledges to operate an air bridge for humanitarian flights for patients to and from Sanaa airport, referring to the lack of seriousness of the international community and the United Nations in stopping this human tragedy.

 

He called on the United Nations and the UN Security Council to work in accordance with the rules and provisions of international humanitarian law and human rights, which recognized the protection of human beings, the preservation of their basic rights, the respect of the right of the Yemeni people to full protection from any violation and the promotion of their right to travel.

 

He called for taking a decisive stance towards ending the continuation of the air blockade imposed on Yemeni airports, and for the issuance of an international resolution by the Security Council to lift the air blockade on Sanaa International Airport, immediately and urgently in front of all civilian flights.

 

Ghanem confirmed the technical and operational readiness of Sana’a Airport to receive civil, humanitarian and commercial flights, in accordance with international standards and procedures issued by ICAO.

 

The closure of Sana’a airport is not the only case, as Al-Rayyan airport in Hadramout is still closed by the Saudi-Emirati coalition forces as well, but the closure of Sana’a airport remains a living testament to painful suffering that summarizes all the tragedies of the abuse of the right to travel in a country that is consumed by war every day.