Yemen’s Houthis say allowed temporary resumption of U.N. flights to Sanaa airport

CAIRO (Reuters) -The aviation authority run by the Houthi administration in Yemen has allowed temporary resumption of flights by the United Nations and other organizations to Sanaa international airport on Monday, the Houthi-run Saba news agency said.

The Iran-aligned Houthi movement said earlier this month that the capital’s airport had been put out of operation after air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

The coalition said it only attacked military targets at the airport, from where drone strikes have been launched against Saudi targets.

The airport has been closed to civilian flights since 2015, after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government from Sanaa, although U.N. planes have been permitted to land there.

The Houthi-run aviation authority said in a statement on Monday it allowed the resumption of the UN flights “after the malfunctions in communications and navigational devices were temporarily fixed,” the agency report said.

The authority complained that it could not guarantee the long-term continuity of these old devices, and urged the UN to help the entry of new devices that it had purchased, it added.

The coalition said that the strikes it had carried would have no effect on operational capacity, airspace management, air traffic, or ground handling operations.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell)