SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties and the American Center for Justice (ACJ) condemned the Arab Coalition's preventing the Yemeni A320 / 70AFC flight from landing at Aden International Airport on the night of July 18, 2020, with 171 Yemeni passengers on board.

The two organizations said in a statement issued today, that according to the statements of passengers on board the aforementioned plane, the Arab coalition prevented Yemeni flights at 11:00 while in the airspace of Aden city from landing, with 171 passengers on board under the pretext that the coalition did not receive copies of the passports 48 hours before its takeoff and forced the flight to return to Cairo airport disregarding the passengers who were on board of the women, children, elderly and sick, and passengers who were on the plane added: "We were abandoned at Cairo airport from 12 at night until 12 o'clock noon, and then they took us to the airport hotel where they crowded six people in one room! "

The two organizations confirmed that the evacuation room of the Arab coalition, which is responsible for examining documents and issuing travel permits, prevented three passengers from boarding the plane for unknown reasons, as only 168 passengers resumed their flight after examining their documents, in clear violation of the right of the Yemeni people to travel, move and return to their homeland whenever intended.

The two organizations pointed out that the coalition evacuation room acts as a judicial authority that violates the human right to movement guaranteed in international treaties and covenants, foremost of which is Article 13, Paragraph 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is an outrageous act and lacks the human and moral sense where many Yemenis are subjected to intransigent treatment and bear great hardship, especially patients and children, who are the majority of Yemeni travelers.

The statement called on the legitimate government, the international community and the coalition to respect Yemenis human rights, who has full rights on his national soil and for which aviation constitutes a legal extension to such right,  as long as they have not committed a crime punishable by law or judicial ruling was issued to ban them from traveling, and to stop this disgraceful behavior and find a mechanism compatible with human rights.