Saudis Bomb Yemen Airport, Assuring End to Aid Flights

Officials Say Move Stopped Iranian Cargo Plane

by Jason Ditz, 

Calamitous shortages of basic goods have fueled a crisis across much of Yemen, particularly the capital city of Sanaa, where Saudi airstrikes are already putting pressure on hospitals. The Saudis have also harshly limited aid shipments into Sanaa.

Today, they assured that there will be no future air shipments to Sanaa, destroying the runway at the Sanaa International Airportin a bombing run.

Saudi officials insist that the bombings prevented an Iranian cargo plane, that might conceivably have weapons on board, from landing in Sanaa. It did that, surely, but also eliminated any hope for humanitarian relief to the city of two million.

Iran said the plane was carrying humanitarian aid, and considered the Saudi order to not deliver it illegal. Yemeni television reported the plane was also to carry some seriously wounded civilians back to Iran for medical treatment. With both takeoff and landing runways now destroyed, there’s no getting out for those civilians.

Aid groups reported they were going to try to route their shipments, which are being seriously limited by the Saudis at any rate, to the airport in Hodeidah, though that airport too was bombed today, and its status is unclear.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/04/28/saudis-bomb-yemen-airport-assuring-end-to-aid-flights/