Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Saturday they would suspend passenger flights in and out of Sanaa airport for two weeks to prevent the introduction of novel coronavirus.
A Saudi-led military coalition battling the rebels has long controlled Yemen's airspace and the capital's airport had served only rare United Nations and humanitarian flights since 2016.
But the Iran-allied insurgents announced "the temporary halting of all passenger flights" for two weeks, starting on Saturday.
Yemen has not to date announced any cases of the COVID-19 illness, but the poor state of the country's health infrastructure after five years of war would mean that such an outbreak could be catastrophic.
Yemen has over three million displaced people and over a third of the population needs humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations, which calls the country's crisis the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
