By Dave Graham
ZURICH (Reuters) – The head of the World Health Organization said on Friday he was not sure he would survive an airstrike on Yemen’s main airport carried out by Israel a day earlier during a series of attacks against the Houthi movement. aligned with Iran. .
Speaking after his ordeal at Sana’a International Airport on Thursday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the explosions that shook the building were so deafening that his ears were still ringing more than a day later.
Tedros said it quickly became clear that the airport was under attack, and described people “running in disarray” through the site after about four explosions, one of them “alarmingly” close to where he was sitting near the airport lounge. shipment.
“I wasn’t sure if I could survive because it was very close, just a few meters from where we were,” he told Reuters. “A slight deviation could have resulted in a direct hit.”
Tedros said he and his colleagues were stuck at the airport for about an hour as what he thought were drones flew overhead, fueling concerns they could open fire again. Among the debris, he and his colleagues saw missile fragments, he said.
“There was no shelter. Nothing. So you’re exposed, waiting for something to happen,” he said.
The Israeli strikes on Yemen came after the Houthis repeatedly fired drones and missiles at Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that Israel was “just getting started” with the Houthis.
The Houthi-controlled Saba news agency said three people were killed in the airport attacks and three were killed in Hodeidah, and 40 others were wounded in the attacks.
Speaking by phone from Jordan, where he flew on Friday to help evacuate a seriously injured U.N. colleague at the airport for further medical treatment, Tedros said he had not received any warning that Israel might be about to attack the airport. .
The injured man, who worked for the UN Humanitarian Air Service, is now “fine” and in stable condition, he said.
Tedros traveled to Yemen over Christmas to try to negotiate the release of UN staff and others held there. He acknowledged that he and his colleagues knew the trip was risky in light of the high tension between Israel and the Houthis.
But the opportunity to work for the release of U.N. staff was such that they believed they had to seize it, said Tedros, Ethiopia’s former foreign minister.
He said talks with Yemeni authorities had gone well and he saw a possibility that the 16 UN staff as well as diplomatic mission employees and NGO workers detained there could be released.
He declined to make recriminations for the attack, but said his itinerary had been shared publicly and expressed surprise that civilian infrastructure should have been attacked.
“So a civilian airport must be protected, whether I’m in it or not,” he said, before observing that there was “nothing special” about what he had faced in Yemen. “One of my colleagues said we narrowly escaped death. I’m only human. So I feel sorry for those who face the same thing every day. But at least it allowed me to feel what they feel.”
“I am concerned about our world, where it is going,” Tedros added, urging world leaders to work together to end global conflicts. “Never…as far as I can remember, have I truly seen the world in such a dangerous state.”