Houthis Strike Aden Airport After Telling People to Leave, Claiming a Saudi Military Cargo Plane Was There

Houthi forces fired ballistic missiles at Aden International Airport on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, hitting it twice, at 1 p.m. and again at 3 p.m., Yemen’s Transport Ministry said. The attack followed a Houthi call for people to leave the airport, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.

Air traffic was halted after the strike, two Transport Ministry officials told Reuters. Flights from Cairo and Mumbai bound for Aden were diverted to Seiyun Airport in Hadramawt province, and a flight to Cairo was canceled, a security official told the Associated Press.

The warning and the strike

The Houthis’ military spokesman, Yahya Saree, urged civilians to evacuate the airport in a post on X. He said a Saudi military cargo aircraft carrying weapons was there, but he gave no evidence, the Associated Press reported.

Saudi authorities made no immediate comment on the claim, according to Reuters. Neither news agency reported any confirmation that a Saudi aircraft was there.

The airport emptied after the warning. Airport employee Salem Al-Awlaqi told the AP it was deserted, and a security official said no staff or security personnel remained.

The order of events is not settled. A source in the Aden police told AFP that a missile fell on the airport before Saree’s evacuation call, Daily Beirut reported, and residents told Reuters explosions were heard elsewhere in the city before the warning.

A video released by the Transport Ministry and circulated by local media showed two craters in the runway, according to the AP.

In a statement carried by the government’s Saba news agency, the ministry said the attacks on the airport had risen to six within days. It called the repeated targeting a direct threat to the lives of passengers, aircrews and airport workers.

Injuries: two different accounts

Yemen’s armed forces spokesman, Col. Majed al-Nazili, said two ballistic missiles struck the airport and caused injuries among civilians and material damage, Saba reported. He gave no number of injured.

An aid source told Reuters that some United Nations staff left the airport shortly before the attack and that no one was hurt. The International Organization for Migration said its personnel traveling through Aden were safe and accounted for.

Why Aden’s airport keeps being hit

Aden is the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, and its airport is the main gateway to southern Yemen. Medecins Sans Frontieres calls it the main entry point for aid to the south, Reuters reported.

On Tuesday, the day before this attack, MSF said a missile had struck near the airport a few days earlier as one of its aircraft was about to take off, according to the same Reuters report.

Civilian flights have been caught up in earlier strikes this month. On October 7, Yemenia flight 603 from Cairo was diverted to Jeddah after a missile landed near the runway shortly before it was due to land, the Transport Ministry said, according to Xinhua.

On October 16, two missiles came down about 1,600 feet (500 m) from Yemenia flight IY612 as it prepared to leave for Cairo. On October 21, a ballistic missile fell near the runway and two Yemenia departures were halted while the airport was evacuated.

The Houthis have framed earlier Aden strikes as attacks on Saudi-led coalition targets beside the airport, such as the Badr Camp, while the government calls them attacks on a civilian airport. This time the stated target was an aircraft at the airport itself.

A wider war on airports

The Aden strikes are one front of a campaign that has also reached Saudi airports, including the attack on Riyadh’s airport that Saudi authorities say killed 12 people and an attack on Dammam’s King Fahd airport.

The Saudi-led coalition has stepped up strikes on Houthi positions in response, Reuters reported. On the same Wednesday, a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry said Saudi-led airstrikes hit a market in al-Hazm, in al-Jawf province, killing 14 people, according to the AP.

The Transport Ministry held the Houthis fully responsible for the Aden attacks. It called on the international community and United Nations agencies, led by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), to condemn them and act urgently to stop them.