Yemen’s exiled government reopened Aden airport on Wednesday, a week after its loyalists retook control of most parts of the southern port city.
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Aden has been the scene of violent clashes between Saudi-backed forces loyal to Yemen’s exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi rebels.
The arrival of the plane in Aden represents a positive step, Saudi military spokesman said, and comes as a result of Operation Restoring Hope.
Basalma told journalists on Monday that a UAE technical team had arrived to fix the tower and passenger terminal at Aden worldwide airport, heavily damaged in clashes.
Assisted by the air strikes, local anti-Houthi forces broke months of stalemate in Aden last week by seizing the airport and then driving the Houthis out of their last redoubt in the west of the city.
On Friday, Khaled Bahah, war-torn Yemen’s vice-president and prime minister, declared that Aden had been “liberated” from the Houthis and allied forces loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Footage from Aden has shown pro-Hadi forces using new armoured vehicles with mounted machine guns.
But to secure the city, loyalists need to push the rebels out of the neighbouring provinces of Lahj and Abyan, according to Mathhadi.
In the military operations, over 80 terrorists affiliated to Al-Qaeda were captured and many others from the Saudi-led coalition were killed, including 7 Pakistani officers and two Emiratis, the report said.
The conflict has had a devastating effect on the Yemeni people.
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A ship carrying food aid for Aden’s beleaguered population docked in the southern Yemeni port on Tuesday, the first in months of warfare that have devastated the city, as rival factions fought in the northern suburbs.
