ADEN // Yemen’s president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi returned to Aden on Tuesday for the first time since his exile to Saudi Arabia, accompanied by three of his newly appointed ministers.
"Hadi will remain in Aden for three days and then he will go to New York for a meeting with the United Nations," immigration minister Alawi Bafaqeeh told The National.
Mr Hadi arrived under tight security on board a Saudi Arabian military aircraft that landed at an airbase adjoining Aden’s civilian airport, said a security official.
Aden’s airport was under heavy security, with armoured vehicles surrounding the structure and checkpoints manned by Emirati and Yemeni troops.
Residents in Aden welcomed the president’s return.
"We should thank Hadi for all of his efforts to free Aden and the whole country from the Houthis," Salwa Abdulfatah, 28, a cashier in Khour Maksar district told The National.
She saw Mr Hadi’s return as a symbol of freedom, representing the return of their whole country.
Ahmed Ameen, 23, said he would not forget the day, with Mr Hadi claiming that Al Qaeda militants were no longer in Aden.
“I hope to see the all governmental institutions resume their work from Aden” he said.
The leader of the Popular Resistance in Al Areesh area, Abdulghani Al Hadrami, 37, said he was glad that Mr Hadi had returned to celebrate Eid Al Adha and Aden’s victory from the Houthis with them.
“Hadi should start by solving the main problems in Aden such as paying the salaries of government employees, treating the injured and awarding the resistance for the work during the last period,” he added.
"Hadi will hold a meeting tonight with the government," the spokesperson of the Yemeni government Ragah Badi told The National on Tuesday.
He is also expected to meet the local authorities, along with the military and security leadership.
Three ministers returned with Mr Hadi including the oil minister, Saif Muhsin Aboud Al Sharif, the minister of youth and sports and former Aden governor, Nayef Al Bakri, and the minister of health and population, Nasser Ba'aom. They were appointed when Mr Hadi made changes to his cabinet on September 15.
The president’s consultant, Yassin Mkauoa and a member of the consultative council, Abdulwahab Al Mikhlafi, were also part of the delegation that returned.
The president’s return comes less than a week after prime minister Khaled Bahah and several other lawmakers returned to Aden, moving the government’s base to the southern port city from the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh where they had been operating for nearly six months.
Aden will be the government's base until the rebels are pushed out of the capital of Sanaa, Mr Hadi's representative in Aden, Mohammed Ali Marem, told The National earlier this month.
Aden was Mr Hadi’s last refuge after the Houthis overran Sanaa in September, with the backing of renegade troops still loyal to Mr Hadi’s ousted predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Mr Hadi fled into exile in Saudi Arabia as the rebels and allied army units advanced on the port city in late March.
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition began air strikes in March and expanded into a ground operation in late July in a bid to restore the Hadi government. Pro-Hadi fighters, backed by Yemeni forces trained and armed by Saudi Arabia, along with troops from the UAE, expelled the rebels from Aden in July and have since recaptured four other southern provinces.
The Houthis, however, still control much of north and central Yemen.
The United Nations says nearly 4,900 people have been killed in the conflict since late March.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
