WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus was at Sanaa airport in Yemen during an Israeli airstrike.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) narrowly avoided injury when Israeli forces targeted Sanaa airport on Thursday. He was in Yemen to negotiate the release of UN personnel detained by Houthi rebels.
The attack occurred as the UN team prepared for departure. Security footage shared by Dr. Ghebreyesus shows the WHO team’s hasty evacuation from the airport terminal, as well as damage to the control tower.
“The situation was extremely chaotic. People were running in all directions with no safe place to go; we were completely exposed,” Dr. Ghebreyesus told reporters upon his return to Switzerland on Saturday, as reported by AFP.
“It was pure luck. A slight change in the missile’s trajectory, and it could have hit us… a colleague remarked that we had narrowly escaped death.”
Thank you to all my friends, colleagues, and everyone who has wished me well during the ordeal in the past few days.
I’m especially grateful to the colleagues and airport staff, who were selfless as they tried to protect me.
We faced a very dangerous attack, but my …
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros)
In an X post, Dr. Ghebreyesus expressed gratitude for the support received. “I am particularly thankful to my colleagues and the airport staff for their selfless efforts to protect me,” he stated.
Julien Harneis, the UN’s Yemen coordinator, reported that a UN worker suffered shrapnel wounds. “I witnessed his bleeding on the tarmac this morning as we bid farewell to Dr. Tedros,” he said on Friday.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched the airstrikes in response to Houthi missile attacks on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. The IDF asserted that the Houthis were using Yemen’s airports and seaports to receive weapons from Iran.
“`