Blasts hit Yemen's Aden airport after Saudi-backed 'government' arrives
Explosions have hit an airport in Yemen’s southern city of Aden after a plane carrying a self-proclaimed government backed by Saudi Arabia landed from Riyadh.
"At least two explosions were heard as the cabinet members were leaving the aircraft" on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
A local security source said three mortar shells had landed on the airport’s hall. Sporadic gunfire was also heard.
The blasts left at least 10 people dead and “dozens” more injured, a medical source told AFP.
Yemen’s self-proclaimed information minister Moammar Al-Eryani said on Twitter that all the members of the Saudi-backed cabinet were “fine”.
The self-proclaimed cabinet was formed in Saudi Arabia on December 18. It includes ministers loyal to the government of former Saudi-backed Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and UAE-backed southern separatists.
Al-Eryani blamed the Wednesday's incident on the Houthi Ansarullah movement, which denied any role in the attack.
Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, a spokesman for the movement, said the attack is a reckoning for the conflict between the separatists and Hadi’s loyalists.
The Riyadh-sponsored push to form the government aimed to mend the rift between Saudi-sponsored and UAE-backed militants which has threatened to shatter the coalition involved in a devastating military campaign against the impoverished Arab country.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing Hadi’s government back to power.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.
The Saudi regime has, however, failed to fulfill the objective of its deadly campaign.
The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.
After the Wednesday's attack, the members of the self-proclaimed cabinet were transferred into Maasheq palace.
Later on Wednesday, Reuters cited residents as saying that explosions were heard around the palace.
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