New York Demands the Opening of Sana’a Airport

YemenExtra

Y.A

Ministry for Immigration Affairs of Yemen called for a massive campaign on Twitter which starts at 9 pm on Friday demanding the breaking of the siege imposed on Sana’a International Airport.

The ministry said in a statement that the tweets campaign coincides with the protest organized by the Yemeni community in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York to demand the lifting of the ban on Sana’a airport and saving the lives of thousands of patients.

It pointed to the importance of broad participation in the campaign to highlight the suffering of Yemenis in general and patients in particular due to the continued closure of Sana’a airport.

The Yemeni community is organizing a protest in front of the UN headquarters in New York tomorrow to demand the opening of Sana’a International Airport and saving the lives of thousands of patients. The spokesman of the General Authority for Civil Aviation and Meteorology, Dr. Mazen Ghanem, said that Yemeni community organizing is a positive step towards pressure to lift the ban on the airport.

He stressed that the closure of Sana’a International Airport is a mass murder of patients and restrictions on the freedom of movement of citizens at home and abroad, as guaranteed by international law. “There is no justification for closing Sana’a airport as flights depart and arrive to and from civilian airports operating in accordance with international standards and procedures,” he said.

The Minister of Health and Population, Dr. Taha Al-Mutawakkil, on Thursday, confirmed the deterioration of the situation of motherhood and childhood due to the continuation of the US-Saudi aggression and siege. He reveals that there are one million births a year, of which five thousand women die.

In his meeting with UN Official, Minister Al-Mutawakel said, “ The first targets of the aggression are children and women, outlining the massacres of aggression against women and children.

53 human rights organizations from 13 Arab countries, confirmed that the continued closure of Sana’a International Airport is a serious violation of the rights of civilians, including the right to life, as well as the suffering of patients in need of treatment abroad. In a letter delivered by the head of the Yemeni Organization for the Defense of Democratic Rights and Freedoms, Ali Al-Dailami, and a number of representatives of coalitions and organizations today, the UN envoy in Yemen called on the international community to quickly open Sana’a Airport as a humanitarian necessity and duty towards the Yemeni People.

A number of patients and war victims, who need to travel abroad for treatment, have started a sit-in tents in front of the gate of Sana’a International Airport to denounce the continued closure of the airport and demand a lifting the siege and resuming flights.

The protesters appealed to international, humanitarian organizations, the international community and the free world to consider their health situation. The closure of Sana’a International Airport for more than 3 years caused a humanitarian disaster that led to the deaths of thousands of them. They called on the United Nations and the international community to reopen the airport for humanitarian and civil flights, stressing that UN-envoy holds his the moral and humanitarian responsibility of the Airport closing.

According to the Ministry of Public Health and Population, the continued closure of Sana’a International Airport by the US-Saudi aggression has resulted in the death of more than 42 thousand patients who were unable to travel abroad for treatment. The Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, on the occasion of three years since the closure of Sana’a International Airport, that more than 350 thousand patients with various cancers and other diseases need to travel to be treated, in addition to the injured people of children, women and men.

The statement pointed out that the closure of Sana’a Airport led to the disappearance of a large number of important life-saving drugs, whether from the stores of the ministry or the commercial market. The Ministry said that the medicines that expired as a result of the closure of Sana’a Airport needed very special conditions for transport in terms of cooling and speed of delivery and has to come through Sana’a Airport.

The Norwegian Refugee Council and Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) said in a statement that the four-year suspension of services at the capital’s airport amounted to a “death sentence” for many ill Yemenis.

It also appealed to Yemen’s warring parties to come to an agreement to reopen the airport for commercial flights to “alleviate [the] humanitarian suffering caused by the closure.”

The spokesman of the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Meteorology , Dr. Mazen Ghanim, said that hundreds of Yemenis have died abroad while waiting to return to Yemen as a result of the continued closure of Sanaa International Airport.

Thousands of Yemeni citizens abroad wanted to return home to live and visit their families, Ghanim added.

“The Arab and Islamic peoples are to celebrate on a great religious occasion, Eid al-Fitr while three million Yemenis are far away from their families and relatives because of the siege of Sanaa International Airport by the US-Saudi aggression.”

The head of the National Delegation, Mohamed Abdelsalam, on Sunday held the United Nations esponsible for the death of the Secretary-General of the Union of Popular Forces, Mohammed Al-Rubaie, stressing that the crime of closing Sana’a International Airport and the failure of the United Nations to do anything requires the understanding of the aggression countries that their airports will be in the range of fire.

“We have repeatedly addressed the United Nations on the case of Mr. Mohammed al-Rubai, who was calling for treatment abroad. Unfortunately, this did not move in accordance with the desire of the Kingdom of aggression to continue Closure Sana’a International Airport,” he said on Twitter.

In March 2015, the US -backed –Saudi-led coalition started  a war against Yemen with the declared aim of crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who had taken over from the staunch Riyadh ally and fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, while also seeking to secure the Saudi border with its southern neighbor. Three years and over 600,000 dead and injured Yemeni people and  prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, the war has yielded little to that effect.

Despite the coalition claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

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