Sanaa International Airport has no regular departures, leaving critically ill Yemenis without a medical evacuation route as of October 20, 2026. Patients remain stranded.
Rajaa Ghirsan, a 50-year-old seamstress in Sanaa, has waited seven years for a seat on a flight to Amman. She needs complex surgery abroad to open her airway, which Yemen's conflict-weakened health system cannot provide.
Ghirsan's vocal cord paralysis and severe larynx complications leave her relying on a device around her neck to keep breathing. It must be replaced every two months, at a cost of $100 each time. She has undergone six operations in Egypt and India since 2006.
Her daughter, Nouran al-Salawi, 28, has cared for her for a decade while raising two children. “The device helps her breathe a little, but it has worn her out and taken away her rest for years,” she said.
“She is waiting for the moment she can have the last operation and be free of it, or she is waiting for death instead.”
Al-Salawi said her mother registered with Sanaa's Higher Medical Committee, which arranges treatment abroad. Repeated shutdowns blocked access to the once-weekly Amman flight. The family cannot afford the long road trip to Aden, the main alternative for patients in the north.
Patients face dangerous journeys and a depleted health system
The overland trip from Sanaa to Aden takes about 14 hours and crosses dozens of checkpoints on both sides of the front lines. It is not a reliable substitute for air travel.
The family of Abdulkarim Abdullah, a 60-year-old with kidney failure, spent about $2,300 to get him to Aden and prepare for a flight. His brother sold Abdulkarim's wife's gold and his own car to cover travel, accommodation, permits and tickets. Abdullah died on the way in January.
Anis al-Asbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi-run Ministry of Health in Sanaa, said airport closures over the past decade affected about 400,000 patients, including 250,000 who need treatment abroad. He said flight disruptions also worsened medicine shortages for more than 125,000 people with cancer.
“It has led to shortages of more than 1,600 types of medicine, including 12 cancer drugs that are barred from entering the country.”
Al-Asbahi said more than 40,000 people with thalassemia and haemolytic anaemia face shortages of iron chelation drugs and intravenous solutions. More than 8,000 kidney-failure patients, he said, lack dialysis equipment and medicines. The shutdown also obstructs imports of spare parts and equipment used to maintain hospital machinery.
Attacks have repeatedly interrupted air links
The Saudi-led coalition closed the airport to commercial traffic in August 2016. A United Nations-brokered truce restored a limited number of flights in May 2022, but later attacks damaged the airport and destroyed aircraft in 2025.
In July 2026, Yemeni government forces backed by Saudi Arabia struck its only working runway to stop an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. Aden's airport, the main alternative, has also come under attack twice in October.
The latest strike was on October 16. Two missiles landed about 500 metres (550 yards) from a Yemenia plane preparing to depart for Cairo. No medical evacuation programme is operating anywhere in Yemen, according to the current account of the situation.
Al-Asbahi told a press conference at Taiz Central Hospital on October 15 that more than 55 health-sector facilities had been targeted, more than 139 hospitals destroyed and more than 190 ambulances destroyed. He identified Al-Dimnah Hospital as the most recent ambulance attack.
The ministry's cumulative figures put deaths at 120 and injuries at 307 between September 3 and October 15, for 427 casualties. It said women and children made up more than 60 percent of the total, with Taiz, Saada and Al-Jawf among the hardest-hit governorates. An earlier account of the same press conference gave the period as September 3 to October 5, while retaining the same casualty figures.
Fighting between government and Houthi forces has intensified in recent months, restricting the movement of people and aid. UN envoy Hans Grundberg told the Security Council this month that Yemen had slid back into full-scale war.
Two infants died before they could be transferred abroad
Yemen's Ministry of Health and Environment said conjoined twins died during a land transfer from Sanaa to Aden, where officials hoped to arrange treatment abroad. The twins had spent more than a week at Al-Sabeen Hospital while medical authorities tried to secure an urgent route out of the country.
The ministry said they arrived at Al-Sabeen Maternity and Children's Hospital at five days old, from Sa'dah Governorate. They had a complex conjoined stump requiring delicate surgery unavailable in Yemen, and needed an immediate transfer abroad to survive.
The ministry blamed the airport closure and what it called international organizations' complicity for preventing a timely airlift. It said the coalition shut the airport on August 8, 2016, and called the closure “a weapon of genocide aimed at the necks of millions of Yemenis.” It also called the blockade the direct cause of the twins' deaths and demanded an international trial for those responsible.
The funding squeeze compounds the loss of access to care. In September 2026, Health Minister Qasim Buhaibeh warned that some areas could lose medical services entirely. He said 19.3 million people need medical assistance, while the humanitarian response has received 17 per cent of the amount required.
