I woke up to this one today, and it stopped me cold. On Wednesday morning, Yemen’s Houthis told everyone at Aden airport to leave at once. A missile had already landed inside the airport grounds before the warning went out.
Their spokesman, Yahya Saree, said a Saudi military cargo plane was sitting at the airport carrying weapons. A local police source told reporters the plane was not hit and took off shortly after. Saudi authorities had nothing to say about it right away.
On the same day, Houthi-run media said Saudi strikes hit a market and a petrol station in Jawf province in the north-west. They put the toll at 14 dead and 10 wounded, women and children among them. That is their claim, and it has not been confirmed on its own yet — but even as a claim, it tells you how rough this day was.
Here is why Aden matters so much. It is where Yemen’s Saudi-backed government is based, ever since the Houthis took the capital, Sanaa, back in 2014. The airport is a lifeline for the south — aid comes through it, and so do ordinary people trying to get in and out. When an airport like that becomes a target, it is not just a military story anymore.
This was also not a one-off. It was the fourth attack on Aden airport this month alone. Two missiles were aimed at it on October 24. The 2022 truce that had mostly held the fighting back is gone now, and the war is running hot again along the Red Sea coast.
My honest take: I keep thinking about the people who were inside that airport when the explosions started, before any warning. Travellers, airport staff, families waiting on flights. Nobody signs up for that when they walk into a terminal. And in Jawf, people were at a market and a petrol station — the most normal places in the world — when the strikes hit.
What worries me most is where this goes next. The fighting is now centred near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A huge share of the world’s shipping passes through there. When a war touches a chokepoint like that, the price shows up far away — at the pump, in shipping costs, and in grocery bills.
There is talk of a draft peace deal from Qatari mediators, but Tehran is already calling the ideas put to it unacceptable. So for now, the people of Aden just need the shooting to stop. I will be watching what happens at that airport in the coming days, and I hope the next headline out of Yemen is about talks, not targets.
Source: Reuters, “Houthis call for immediate evacuation of Aden airport as fighting intensifies in Yemen”
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