IRCS Secretary General Ali Asghar Ahmadi said on Wednesday that after coordinating with the Red Cross, Nejat (Rescue) cargo ship carrying Iran’s medical aid and food stuff for Yemeni people was loaded in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas and headed to one of Yemen’s ports.
Expressing Iranian nation willingness to help impoverished people of Yemen, Ahmadi regretted that after the Saudi attack to neighboring Yemen, the air route of humanitarian aid of Iranian people has been blocked by Saudis despite the international laws in favor of war-wracked civilians.
He condemned the world society for remaining silent about the human crisis in Yemen and rapped the duplicity of many countries toward human rights.
Stressing IRCS impartiality he added that, “we have no political objective and our main task is humanitarian relief for civilians, women and children.”
Pointing to ungrounded claims about the humanitarian aids dispatched by Iran, the official insisted on continuity of aids regardless of absurd allegations.
Ahmadi’s comments came after Saudi Arabia on April 28 forced an Iranian cargo plane carrying medical aid and food stuff for crisis-hit people in Yemen to return.
The Iranian aircraft, which had earlier received permits from Omani and Yemeni aviation officials to cross into Yemen’s airspace, could not land at the international airport in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, as Saudi warplanes rushed into bombing the airport to prevent Iranian aid plane from landing.
The development came less than a week after Saudi fighter jets intercepted another Iranian airplane, carrying humanitarian aid to Yemen, and prevented it from entering the Yemeni airspace on April 22.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry official said the IRCS had obtained the necessary permissions to fly in the Oman-Yemen route and send a plane in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in order to fly Yemeni patients back to Iran and distribute medical aid to the injured in the war-wracked country.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on April 26 said the Islamic Republic considers all options for helping the Yemeni people and immediate dispatch of humanitarian aid and transfer of the injured.
Saudi Arabia started its military aggression against Yemen on March 26 - without a UN mandate - in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of Riyadh.
The Saudis claim the airstrikes only target military positions. However, reports show civilians and infrastructure in civilian areas are being attacked.
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said evidence shows Saudi Arabia has used cluster munitions in the northern province of Saada in recent weeks.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 2500 Yemenis lost their lives and 5,044 others were injured from March 19 to May 13. Hundreds of women and children are among the victims, according to the WHO.
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