Column: Airport strikes remind us who pays for war

Humanism column — opinion. The airport strikes of 7 October should trouble anyone who believes human life has equal worth. Houthi drones and missiles hit airports in Saudi Arabia and Yemen at dawn. Saudi authorities say three people died and 36 were injured, The National reported.

Look at who was hurt. At Abha airport, two women died. One was Moroccan and one was Algerian. Twenty-eight people were injured, including Saudi citizens and people from Bangladesh and the Philippines.

At King Khalid airport in Riyadh, a Sudanese person died. Eight were hurt, among them Egyptian and Pakistani residents. These are not soldiers. They are workers and travellers, the people who keep the region moving.

Why airport strikes expose the humanist case

Humanism starts from a simple claim. Every person matters because they are a person. Nationality, faith and employer do not change that.

War makes this principle hard to hold. Armies speak of targets and damage. The Houthi spokesman claimed dozens of Saudi officers were killed. That claim could not be independently verified. Verified deaths are the ones we can name by nationality: Moroccan, Algerian, Sudanese.

The violence also spread to Aden. Two ballistic missiles and several drones were fired at its airport. One missile landed near the runway minutes before a Yemenia flight from Cairo was due to land. The plane diverted to Jeddah. No casualties were reported there.

In Taiz, shelling killed six civilians and wounded 18, according to Yemen’s legal affairs minister. Every side in this conflict has an account of events. Civilians appear in all of them.

I do not claim a simple fix. I do claim a test. Judge any military action by what it does to people who never chose the war. Airports exist for ordinary travel. Striking them punishes the poorest passengers first.

Governments and armed groups should publish casualty figures, allow independent checks and stop attacks on civilian transport. Those are modest demands. They are also the minimum of a shared humanity. The wider regional tensions are explained in our Hormuz coverage.

Fact basis: The National (7 October 2026), citing Saudi authorities and Yemeni officials. Houthi claims are unverified. This is an opinion column.