Yemen’s prime minister returns to Aden

Khaled Bahah arrived after coalition-backed fighters pushed Houthi rebels out of the sourthern port city.

Yemen's prime minister and vice president Khaled Bahah (C) talks to reporters upon his arrival at Aden airport on August 1. Reuters

ADEN // Yemen’s prime minister Khaled Bahah led a team of top officials back to Aden on Saturday, pledging to continue restoring stability to the city.

Mr Bahah is also vice president and is the highest ranking politician to return to Yemen since Iranian-backed Houthi rebels were driven out of Aden last month.

The president, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, and his internationally recognised government had to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia this year after the Iranian-backed rebels overran the capital, Sanaa, followed by the southern port city of Aden.

Hadi loyalist forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition that includes the UAE forced the rebels out of Aden two weeks ago, and on Saturday Mr Bahah returned to the city on a Saudi military plane. He promised that “normal life” would return to a “liberated Aden” and that he would be visiting people wounded in the fighting.

Senior government officials arrived on a separate plane from Saudi Arabia. The human rights minister, Ezzedine Al Isbahi, said they would supervise work already under way to reopen public buildings and resume broadcasts at the state television and radio stations.

The interior and transport ministers had toured parts of Aden in mid-July during a brief visit to assess the damage from the fighting. They also looked at ways to fully reopen the ports and airport to allow the delivery of desperately needed relief aid supplies.

The head of the Red Crescent in Aden, Ahmed Mansur, said that the charity had received food aid from the UAE and was able to hand out 20,000 parcels to residents of three neighbourhoods.

Authorities have managed to partially reopen main roads after removing debris, including burnt out military vehicles and cars. Residents have also ventured outdoors to take stock of the damage. Some have returned from other areas of the city to find their homes devastated by the fighting.

Also on Saturday, the Egyptian government extended by six months its armed forces’ commitment to the Saudi-led coalition against the rebels.

Egypt initially authorised a 40-day mandate on March 26, and extended it for three months on May 3. It said that the purpose of the mission was to “defend Egyptian and Arab national security”.

Meanwhile, Hadi loyalist forces were pressing an advance on Saturday, north and east of Aden, to dislodge rebels who are still entrenched in the Lahj and Abyan provinces.

Coalition warplanes carried out air strikes over the weekend against rebels holed up in the strategic Al Anad airbase in Lahj province.

Strikes also targeted the southeastern province of Taez, where fighting killed 47 rebels and five pro-government forces.

Coalition warplanes also bombarded the province of Mareb east of Sanaa and the rebel stronghold of Saada in the north on Saturday.

The rebels and their allies, renegade military forces loyal to the deposed former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, remain in control of Sanaa and large swaths of the country.

The United Nations says the war has killed nearly 4,000 people, half of them civilians, and 80 per cent of the 21 million population is in need of aid and protection.

* Agence France-Presse, Reuters