Yemen tells UN Security Council that modified Houthi missiles endanger civil aviation
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s government has asked the UN Security Council to enforce the arms embargo on the Houthis, saying modified missiles fired from Hodeidah endanger civilian aircraft.
The letter went to the president of the Security Council and to Secretary-General António Guterres. The state news agency Saba reported it on 30 September.
Saba said the government had recently documented Iranian-made air-defence weapons modified inside Yemen. Experts from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps were involved in that work, according to the letter.
The modified weapons can stay airborne for up to 25 minutes, the letter said. It said they use heat-tracking systems that may not separate military from civilian targets.
The weapons are fired from areas under Houthi control in Hodeidah governorate toward international air routes over the southern Red Sea, according to the letter.
It described a direct risk to civilian aircraft, passengers, UN flights and humanitarian operations in Yemen and the region.
The government asked member states to enforce the arms embargo, citing Security Council Resolution 2216. It asked for urgent coordination with the International Civil Aviation Organization and with national aviation authorities to assess the risk and put protective measures in place.
It also asked for accountability for those supplying and deploying the weapons.
The account rests on Saba, the news agency of the internationally recognised government. Yemen Herald has not obtained the text of the letter, and no independent record of its contents has been published.
Yemen Herald found no Houthi comment on the letter. The movement denies acting on Iranian instruction.
Resolution 2216 was adopted on 14 April 2015 by 14 votes to none, with Russia abstaining. It imposed a targeted arms embargo on the Houthi leadership and on named individuals, and it is not time limited.
The resolution demanded that the Houthis end violence, withdraw from areas they had seized and give up weapons taken from state institutions. It also demanded the release of the defence minister and an end to the recruitment of children.
The International Civil Aviation Organization is the UN specialised agency for civil aviation. It sets standards for member states. Decisions to close or restrict airspace rest with national authorities.
ICAO set up a task force on conflict-zone risks after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing 298 people. The agency later published a risk assessment manual for civil aircraft operating over or near conflict zones.
The sanctions architecture the letter invokes rests on two resolutions. Resolution 2140, adopted in 2014, created the Yemen sanctions committee and its panel of experts. Resolution 2216 added the arms embargo the following year.
The letter follows a claim made by Yemen’s armed forces three days earlier. The armed forces spokesman, Majed al-Nuzaili, said on 27 September that Houthi forces were converting Iranian air-defence missiles into loitering weapons. Arab News, the Saudi Gazette, the Turkish broadcaster A News and the Yemeni outlet Yemen Monitor carried that statement.
Al Jazeera examined the account on 29 September. It did not confirm it.
Eleonora Ardemagni, of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, told the broadcaster there was no conclusive evidence for the claim. She said a series of indications meant it could not be ruled out.
Saj Ahmad, of StrategicAero Research, told Al Jazeera that air traffic over Yemen is minimal. He said that reduces the inadvertent threat to passenger aircraft.
Hodeidah lies on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Houthi forces have held the city since October 2014.
The letter comes during a Houthi offensive that opened on 3 September. Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mokha on 10 September, the Guardian reported at the time.
Reuters reported the following day that they had taken Dhubab and reached Perim Island, at the Bab al-Mandab strait. Government forces then pulled back from the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands.
Mokha lies in Taiz governorate, on the Red Sea coast north of Bab al-Mandab.
A report published on 21 September by New Lines Magazine traced the collapse of the west coast front to the United Arab Emirates’ withdrawal from Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s assumption of sole command. It was written by Mohammed Al-Qadhi, a Yemeni journalist and political analyst.
UN passenger flights into Yemen are run by the UN Humanitarian Air Service. Service to Sanaa has been halted and restored more than once. Xinhua reported in February that flights had resumed after a month-long suspension.
The southern Red Sea carries air corridors linking Europe, the Gulf and East Africa, and it is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its March 2026 plan that more than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance. It put the number who are acutely food insecure at 18.3 million.
The plan sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.
Bab al-Mandab is about 30 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. Perim Island sits inside the strait and divides it into two channels.
Houthi forces have attacked shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November 2023. They have said the campaign is tied to the war in Gaza.
Saba’s report named no Yemeni official as the signatory of the letter.
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