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Yemen’s Sanaa Int’l Airport: A Houthi Gateway for Extorting Travelers

The first flight out of Sanaa prepares to depart to Amman after travel is resumed at Sanaa International Airport. (AP)
The first flight out of Sanaa prepares to depart to Amman after travel is resumed at Sanaa International Airport. (AP)
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Yemen’s Sanaa Int’l Airport: A Houthi Gateway for Extorting Travelers

The first flight out of Sanaa prepares to depart to Amman after travel is resumed at Sanaa International Airport. (AP)
The first flight out of Sanaa prepares to depart to Amman after travel is resumed at Sanaa International Airport. (AP)

Travelers passing through Yemen’s Sanaa International Airport, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militias, end up spending more than half a day there to complete procedures due to the militias’ practices.

The airport has been turned into a Houthi hub for tracking and humiliating politicians and activists of both genders, according to six passengers who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat.

People who have left Yemen in the past two months through the airport have mentioned that the travel ordeal begins with obtaining a seat from Yemenia Airlines’ offices in militia-controlled areas.

Houthis have restricted the booking procedures through a special room managed by a cell of its internal intelligence apparatus, known as the Preventive Security, established by the Hezbollah militias.

According to sources, this cell has control over the number of seats and the identities of individuals who obtain reservations from Sanaa to the Jordanian capital, as well as on return flights from there for those coming from other countries via Jordan.

Travelers said the ticket prices are significantly higher in militia-controlled areas compared to government-controlled areas. They are being sold for $500 in government regions and $800 in areas held by the Houthis.

The militias have exploited people’s need to travel and their inability to afford traveling by land to government-controlled areas, which would take approximately 12 hours by car. Meanwhile, passenger buses take at least 18 hours to cover the same distance.

According to many Sanaa residents, when a person goes to the airline office to purchase a ticket, the employees inform them that all seats are reserved.

However, upon leaving the office and reaching the gate, ticket brokers approach them and offer any number of seats in exchange for a bribe of one hundred dollars per seat.

Sources confirmed that the Houthis have exploited the circumstances of travelers heading abroad, whether for medical treatment, education, or returning to their jobs.

Houthis are abusing the travelers’ inability to endure the overland journey to Aden, which takes around 12 hours, in addition to the cost of renting transportation vehicles, which can reach $600 roundtrip.

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Gazan Family Uprooted by Renewed War Faces Deepening Hardship

Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud
Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud
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Gazan Family Uprooted by Renewed War Faces Deepening Hardship

Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud
Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud

Khader Junaid clambered onto a donkey cart with his family and their belongings and set off through Gaza's rubble, embarking on all-too-familiar escape to safety following the resumption of heavy Israeli airstrikes.

Repeated displacement has become a way of life for Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians since a Hamas attack on southern Israel in October, 2023, triggered a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and reduced the enclave to debris and dust.

"We were fine with staying in a tent next to our destroyed home, and now we are forced to go back into the schools," said the Palestinian father-of-six, referring to shelters set up in school buildings.

Continual displacement means ever more hardship for families, Reuters reported.

Junaid's wife Huda urged US President Donald Trump to stop the Gaza war and to work for reconciliation and peace. "We don't want war, we don't want death," she said. "Enough! We are fed up. There are no longer children in Gaza, all of our children are dead, all of our relatives are dead."

Asked about displaced civilians in Gaza, Israeli Defense Forces International Spokesperson Nadav Shoshani described Israel's Hamas militant enemy as "a murderous, a genocidal terror organization that is hiding behind civilians. It is a very difficult war."

Israel is giving up the element of surprise, "one of the most important elements in the battlefield, to make sure those civilians have a chance to get out of harm’s way," he said.

Israel resumed airstrikes on Tuesday, effectively abandoning a ceasefire put in place in January, killing more than 400 Palestinians that day in one of the war's deadliest episodes. A total of at least 510 Palestinians have been killed in the past three days, more than half of them women and children, Khalil Al-Deqran, the spokesperson of the territory's health ministry, told Reuters.

RISING PRICES, FLOODING SEWERS

In January, Junaid's family returned to their destroyed home in al-Salam district in Jabalia refugee camp and erected a tent next to it, but on Wednesday they were on the move once again after shelling intensified.

"It hasn't been even two months since we returned home and now we are displaced again," said Huda.

Huda says the family is exhausted after living in tight spaces in dire conditions. The family headed to a school-turned-shelter in Jabalia, but could not find a place among the crowds, forcing them to set up a tent next to the bathrooms. "I suffered so much to find a place for our tent and it is next to the school's bathrooms where the sewers are flooding," Khader said. Mopping the floor of their makeshift tent, Huda explained how expensive life has become, with raised prices for sugar, tomatoes and many other items.

With crossings closed and supplies dwindling, families like Junaid's are left to rely on food aid from charities, turning to soup kitchens to survive.

"Due to the recent suspension of humanitarian aid into Gaza, stocks of medical supplies have dropped significantly and on top of this, hospital staff are struggling to manage the sharp increase of casualties," said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a statement.

More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign on Gaza after October 7, according to Gaza's health authorities. Trump has said the United States will take over Gaza, resettle its Palestinians and redevelop it into an international beach resort, angering its inhabitants and Arab states.