1st Commercial Flight Out of Sanaa Postponed as Both Sides Trade Barbs

The first commercial flight out of Sanaa airport, which is held by the Houthi rebels, was indefinitely postponed on Sunday, three weeks into a truce between the sides in Yemen’s long-running civil war. Flights between Sanaa and Amman in Jordan, and between Sanaa and Cairo in Egypt were agreed upon by all sides under a two-month truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition supporting the internationally recognized government of Yemen.

Yemen’s government agreed to allow the national airline Yemenia carry some 104 passengers carrying government-issued passports to travel on the commercial flight leaving on Sunday, but the Houthis added 60 more passengers with passports issued by the rebel militia to the manifest for Sunday’s flight, however.

Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani blamed the delay on the Houthis, and accused them of attempting to smuggle military experts from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah out of the country under false names and with forged passports. The Houthis called the postponement of the flight a violation of the UN-brokered truce that began early this month.