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Reopening of Riyan airport will alleviate humanitarian crisis in Yemen, local governor says

Mabkhout bin Madhi, the governor of Hadramout province, said the coalition has handed over the airport to the provincial government. (Al Arabiya)
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Updated 11 May 2023
Saeed Al-Batati
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Reopening of Riyan airport will alleviate humanitarian crisis in Yemen, local governor says

  • The Arab coalition, which has been protecting the airport during the civil war, returned control of it to local authorities in the southeastern province of Hadramout
  • Terminals, car parks and other facilities will be renovated and new routes are planned; Yemen’s Prime Minister directed the Transport Ministry to quickly implement the plans
Updated 11 May 2023
Saeed Al-Batati

AL-MUKALLA:Control of Riyan International Airport, in the port city of Al-Mukalla in southeastern Yemen, has been returned to local authorities by the Arab coalition that has been guarding it during the conflict in the country, Mabkhout bin Madhi, the governor of Hadramout province, has announced.

He said the coalition has handed over the airport to the provincial government, which has pledged to renovate it and establish new air routes.

The reopening of the airport will help to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the country and make it easier for thousands of Yemenis to travel to other countries, the governor added.

“The airport terminals and civilian facilities were received in the context of joint coordination and within the framework of the brothers in the leadership of the Arab Coalition’s support for efforts to normalize life, following their support for maintaining security following the liberation of the Hadramout coast from Al-Qaeda elements,” said bin Madhi.

Yemen’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed directed the Ministry of Transportation to quickly implement the renovation plans so that the airport can return to operating at full capacity.

Arab coalition forces, primarily from the UAE, have controlled the airport since early 2016, when coalition-backed Yemeni forces drove Al-Qaeda out of Al-Mukalla, Hadramout’s capital, and nearby coastal areas.

In 2019, the UAE Red Crescent opened a new hall at the airport, paving the way for Yemenia Airways to plan weekly flights to Jeddah, Socotra and Aden. Bin Madhi said the local government will now renovate terminals, car parks and other facilities, so that he airport can establish new routes and offer flights to more destinations. Before the long-running war in the country, Yemenia flew from the airport to Kuwait, Cairo, Amman, Kuala Lumpur, Sanaa, and other Yemeni and international destinations.

Yemenis have long complained about the long distances they must travel to reach one of the two airports that remained operational in the country: Seiyun Airport in Hadramout and Aden International Airport.

Meanwhile, in Aden, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, told Al-Arabiya TV on Wednesday that the Iran-backed Houthis should embrace the Saudi peace plan to end the conflict in Yemen and halt the fighting for good. He accused the Houthis of using temporary truces to regroup and replenish before resuming fighting.

He also commended Saudi Arabia on the assistance it has provided to Yemen in the health, transportation and other sectors.

“The Yemeni people need peace, health and services; the Yemeni people want life,” he added.

On Wednesday, Al-Alimi and the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al-Jaber, officially launched a number of Saudi-funded development projects in Aden, including the renovations of Aden’s airport and a government-run hospital.
 

Topics: Yemen

Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association

Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
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Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association

Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
ISTANBUL: Turkish prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Istanbul Bar Association for “terrorist propaganda” over its calls for a probe into journalist deaths in Syria, the country’s main lawyers association has said.
“The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office has begun legal action to remove Istanbul Bar Association president Ibrahim Kaboglu and his executive board,” Turkish Bar Association head Erinc Sagkan wrote on X late Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed several weeks after the Istanbul Bar Association demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, died on December 19 when their car was hit by what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was a “Turkish drone strike” during clashes between an Ankara-backed militia and the SDF, a US-backed group of mainly Kurdish fighters.
Turkiye sees the SDF as a terror group tied to the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency, and the strike denounced by the Turkish Journalists’ Union.
The Turkish military insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
At the time, the Istanbul Bar Association issued a statement saying “targeting members of the press in conflict zones is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention.” It demanded “a proper investigation be conducted into the murder of two of our citizens.”
Prosecutors immediately opened an inquiry into allegations of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “publicly spreading false information” on grounds the two journalists had ties to the PKK.
The Istanbul Bar Association denounced the lawsuit as having “no legal basis” and said its executive council was “fulfilling its duties and responsibilities in line with the Constitution, democracy and the law.”
Turkish Bar Association head Sagkan said: “Although the methods may change, the only thing that has remained constant for the past half century is the effort by the government’s supporters to pressurise and stifle those they see as opponents.”

UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban

Updated 15 January 2025
Reuters
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UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban

Updated 15 January 2025
Reuters

OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to provide aid to people in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo. “UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.

Topics: War on Gaza UNRWA Oslo

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Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria

Updated 15 January 2025
Reuters
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Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria

Updated 15 January 2025
Reuters

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged all countries to “take their hands off” Syria and said Turkiye had the capacity and ability to crush all terrorist organizations in the country, including Kurdish militia and Islamic State.
Speaking in parliament, Erdogan said the Kurdish YPG militia was the biggest problem in Syria now after the ousting of former President Bashar Assad, and added that the group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria Turkiye

World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM

Updated 15 January 2025
AFP
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World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM

Updated 15 January 2025
AFP

OSLO: The international community will have to maintain pressure on Israel after an hoped-for ceasefire in Gaza so it accepts the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.
A ceasefire agreement appears close following a recent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying late Tuesday that a deal to end the 15-month war was “on the brink.”
“The ceasefire we’re talking about ... came about primarily because of international pressure. So pressure does pay off,” Mustafa said before a conference in Oslo.
Israel must “be shown what’s right and what’s wrong, and that the veto power on peace and statehood for Palestinians will not be accepted and tolerated any longer,” he told reporters.
He was speaking at the start of the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, gathering representatives from some 80 states and organizations in Oslo.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, the host of the meeting, said a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”
“We need to move forward now toward a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we need to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he added.
According to analysts, the two-state solution appears more remote than ever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firmly supported by US President-elect Donald Trump, is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israel is not represented at the Oslo meeting.
Norway angered Israel when it recognized the Palestinian state, together with Spain and Ireland, last May, a move later followed by Slovenia.
In a nod to history, Wednesday’s meeting was held in the Oslo City Hall, where Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israeli prime minister and his foreign minister were honored for signing the Oslo accords a year earlier, which laid the foundation for Palestinian autonomy with the goal of an independent state.

Topics: War on Gaza

Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls

Updated 15 January 2025
AFP
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Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls

Updated 15 January 2025
AFP

DAMASCUS: Families of missing persons have urged Syria’s new authorities to protect evidence of crimes under president Bashar Assad, after outrage over volunteers painting over etchings on walls inside a former jail.
Thousands poured out of prisons after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of tens of thousands of relatives and friends who went missing.
In the chaos following his ouster, with journalists and families rushing to detention centers, official documents have been left unprotected, with some even looted or destroyed.
Rights groups have stressed the urgent need to preserve “evidence of atrocities,” which includes writings left by detainees on the walls of their cells.
But a video appearing to show young volunteers paint over such writings at an unnamed detention center with white paint and adorning its walls with the new Syrian flag, the depiction of a fireplace or broken chains has circulated on social media in recent days, angering activists.
“Painting the walls of security branches is disgraceful, especially before the start of new investigations into human rights violations” there, said Diab Serriya, a co-founder of Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP).
It is “an attempt to destroy the signs of torture or enforced disappearance and hampers efforts to... gather evidence,” he said.
Jomana Hasan Shtiwy, a Syrian held in three different facilities under Assad, often changing cells, said the writings on the walls held invaluable information.
“On the walls are names and telephone numbers to contact relatives and inform them about the fate of their children,” she said on Facebook.
In each new cell, “we would write a memory so that those who followed could remember us,” she said.
A petition appeared on Tuesday calling for the new Syrian authorities to better protect evidence, and give investigating the fate of those forcibly disappeared under Assad “the highest priority.”
It slammed what it called “the insensitive treatment of the sanctity” of former detention centers.
“Some have gone as far as to paint cells, obscuring their features, which for us represents... a great wronging of detainees,” said signatories, including ADMSP.
The president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said last week determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war would be a “huge challenge.”
Mirjana Spoljaric said the ICRC was following 43,000 cases, but that was probably just a fraction of the missing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria Saydnaya prison

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