On Wednesday, December 30, a large blast and gunfire were heard at Aden airport shortly after a plane carrying Yemen’s newly formed government landed, as was reported by the local TV channel Al Arabiya.
According to preliminary data, at least five people were killed and dozens more were wounded in the attack on Aden airport, a local security source told Reuters. The local Aden al-Ghad news website reported that a large number of people were killed by the blasts.
Later, the New York Times reported that the blast killed at least 16 people and wounded 60 more. The source of the blast was not immediately clear, and no group claimed responsibility for the explosion.
No one on the government plane was hurt, but officials at the scene said they saw bodies lying on the tarmac and elsewhere at the airport. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The Yemeni communications minister, Naguib al-Awg, who was on the government plane, said that he heard two explosions, suggesting they were drone attacks. Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and the other officials have quickly whisked away from the airport to the presidential palace in the city.
“It would have been a disaster if the plane was bombed,” Mr. al-Awg said, insisting the plane was the target of the attack because it was supposed to land earlier.
Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and the other cabinet ministers were said to have been transferred to a presidential palace in the city.
Aden is the temporary seat of Yemen's internationally-recognized government. The new cabinet was formed in an effort to heal a serious rift between forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC). The two sides are supposed to be allies in the war against the rebel Houthi movement, which controls the capital Sanaa and much of north-western Yemen.
As was reported earlier by ‘Apostrophe’, on Wednesday, December 23, there was a powerful explosion in a high-rise office building in Baltimore.The explosion of BGE building downtown caused a partial roof collapse. Twenty-one of the victims — all construction workers — were brought to area hospitals following the accident and a window-washing crew was temporarily trapped on dangling scaffolding. Two trapped workers were rescued through a window.
Also, on December 19, a powerful explosion erupted in southern Turkey. An oxygen tank exploded in the coronavirus hospital in Gaziantep. At least eight people were killed. Seven of them were in the intensive care unit, where the oxygen machine exploded. Others died while being transferred to another hospital.