First commercial flight in six years takes off from Yemen's Sana’a airport
Sanaa, May 16: The first commercial flight in six years took off from Yemen's rebel-held capital on Monday, officials said, part of a fragile truce in the county's grinding civil war.
The Yemen Airways flight, with 151 passengers on board, was bound for Jordan's capital of Amman, according to media outlets run by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Earlier, the plane had arrived in Sanaa from the southern port city of Aden to pick up the passengers. On touchdown, it was welcomed by a ceremonial water salute, according to a video posted online by the national carrier.
The Houthi media office said a return flight was expected back in Sanaa from Amman later Monday.
For Wednesday, Yemen Airways announced another flight from Sanaa to Amman and a return one to the Yemeni capital.
The flight is part of the U.N.-brokered, 60-day truce agreement that the internationally recognised government and the Houthi rebels struck last month.
The truce, which went into effect on April 2, is the first nationwide cease-fire in Yemen in six years.
The truce accord calls for two commercial flights a week to and from Sanaa to Jordan and Egypt.
The Houthi-held Sanaa is blockaded by the Saudi-led coalition, which backs the internationally recognised government.
The closure of the airport has inflicted major economic and humanitarian damage thousands of people had lost their jobs as businesses providing services closed down or suffered heavy losses.
Before the blockade, the Sanaa airport had an estimated of 6,000 passengers a day, and more than 2 million passengers every year, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, an international charity working in Yemen.
The U.N. envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, hailed what he described as constructive cooperation of the Yemeni government.
This should be a moment of coming together to do more, to start repairing what the war has broken, he said in a statement.
He urged both parties to implement all truce commitments and move towards resuming a political process to sustainably end the conflict.
The flight was initially due to take off on April 2 but a dispute over passports issued by the Houthis had delayed the departure date. This time, the internationally recognized government allowed passengers with Houthi-issued documents to board the flight.
The government-run SABA news agency said last week that new Yemeni passports would be issued in Jordan for those arriving with Houthi-issued travel documents.
Erin Hutchinson, Yemen director at the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the take-off of the first flight was a stepping stone towards a lasting peace for Yemen.
The long overdue reopening of the airport was one of the major objectives of the truce," she said, urging warring parties to work towards implementing other elements of the deal, including reopening of roads around Taiz and other provinces.
Taiz, which remains partially held by the forces fighting on behalf of the government, has been blockaded by the Houthis since 2016.
The U.N. envoy met last month with the government delegation to prepare for meetings on reopening roads in Taiz and other provinces. The Houthis have yet to name their delegation to the road-reopening meeting, raising concerns about their commitment to lifting the blockade.
A Houthi spokesman did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The truce also included allowing 18 vessels carrying fuel into the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is controlled by the Houthis, over a two-month period.
The cease-fire came amid concerted international and regional efforts to find a settlement to the conflict that has devastated the Arab world's poorest country and pushed it to the brink of famine.
Yemen's civil war erupted in 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and forced the government into exile.
The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try restore the government to power.
Despite daily violations reported by both sides, major ground and air clashes have subsided and the rebels have stopped their cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, another pillar of the anti-Houthi coalition.
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Four held for Rs 33 lakh online investment fraud; interstate racket busted
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi Police has busted an interstate cyber fraud syndicate involved in an online investment scam and arrested four persons, an official said on Saturday.
A crime branch team arrested the accused in a case where a victim was allegedly cheated of Rs 33.83 lakh on the pretext of lucrative returns through online trading platforms.
“Police said the accused lured victims with promises of high returns and later coerced them into depositing more money on the pretext of unlocking or withdrawing earlier investments,” the officer said.
Police said the racket operated across several states, including Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan, and used a network of mule bank accounts to route and layer the defrauded money to conceal its origin.
“During the investigation, the cheated amount was traced to 15 bank accounts. Thirteen of these accounts were registered outside Delhi, indicating the organised and interstate nature of the syndicate,” said the police officer.
The accused have been identified as Mohammad Khalid (26) and Atiur Rahman (23), both residents of Delhi, Ramandeep Singh (29) from Punjab, and Tanish alias Heera Ram (27) from Rajasthan.
According to the police, Khalid was arrested on March 15 and allegedly disclosed that he gave his bank account details and SIM card to a co-accused for a commission.
Rahman, who was already lodged in a jail in Haryana in a similar case, was later formally arrested. Ramandeep Singh was arrested on April 6 and allegedly admitted to sharing his account credentials for monetary gain.
Tanish was apprehended from Rajasthan on April 9 for facilitating the use of such accounts in the fraud network.
During the probe, officers analysed over 100 call detail records, IMEI data and transaction-related digital evidence to track the accused and establish the money trail.
Three mobile phones and SIM cards used in the crime have been recovered.
Further investigation is underway to identify other members of the syndicate and trace additional financial linkages, the police said.
