WHO chief says he was at Yemen airport as Israeli bombs fell nearby
The head of the U.N. health agency says he and his team were about to board a flight in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa when the airport came under aerial bombardment.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters (yards) from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X.
He said one of the U.N. plane’s crew was injured but he and his WHO colleagues were safe. “We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave.”
The Israeli military said Thursday it attacked infrastructure used by the Houthis at the airport as well as power stations and ports in rebel-controlled areas. Israel’s military didn’t immediately respond to questions about Tedros’ comments but issued a statement saying it had “capabilities to strike very far from Israel’s territory — precisely, powerfully, and repetitively.”
Tedros said the U.N. team was in Yemen to negotiate the release of U.N. staff detained by the Houthis and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in the country, which faces one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world.
Source: Associated Press
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/310044 |