World Health Organisation (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “narrowly” escaped death after an Israeli airstrike hit an airport in Yemen.
Ghebreyesus recounted the moments of the strike in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday, December 28, 2024, and said that he felt "completely exposed" during the attack that killed at least six people.
He was at the airport with other UN staff to leave for Sanaa after their trip to negotiate the release of UN detainees and look after the humanitarian situation in the country when the Israeli airport hit the airport on Thursday, December 26, 2024.
He said, “It was very chaotic, you know, people were in disarray and running everywhere. (There was) no shelter, so we were completely exposed. It's a matter of luck, otherwise, if the missile had deviated just slightly, it could have been on our heads. So my colleague actually said, after all that, we escaped death narrowly.”
WHO chief emphasised, “It doesn't matter whether I'm there or not. Any civilian life is life; my life is not better than another human being."
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed that the airport was used by the Houthi rebels "to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region" to attack Israel and to welcome "senior Iranian officials."
Meanwhile, the Houthi-run Saba news agency reported three casualties at the airport and three others at the power stations and a port in the region while 40 others were injured in the attacks.
