Yemen asks Egypt to lift travel restrictions
Yemen’s government is urging Egypt to lift new restrictions preventing Yemenis from traveling there. 60 Yemeni travelers were denied entry to Cairo for not having an Egyptian medical certificate, despite carrying one from Yemen. Egyptian authorities now require an authentic medical report from an Egyptian hospital. The Yemeni airline was only informed of the change after flight 601 left Aden for Cairo, leaving many stranded at the airport.
Another group of Yemenis was reportedly stranded at Cairo International Airport on Monday after failing to provide authentic copies of their medical reports from Egyptian hospitals.
Yemeni travel agencies said they were obliged to postpone some of their customs bookings to get a medical report, costing $45, from Egypt. A similar report from a facility in Yemen costs less than $20.
The Egyptians said that their most recent entrance or residency restrictions extended to people from a variety of nations.
At a meeting with the head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, on Sunday in Riyadh, the Egyptian ambassador to Yemen, Ahmed Farouq, said that the rules did not target Yemenis primarily and extended to other nationalities too.
Faced with mounting public pressure to resolve the issue quickly, a Yemeni government official told Arab News that Yemen’s president would send a special envoy to Egypt to discuss the new restrictions with Egyptian officials.
Owing to easy travel rules to Egypt and collapsing health systems at home, hundreds of Yemenis go to Egypt each month to seek treatment, education, or to live.
Yemeni officials and the public have urged Egypt to continue its support for Yemenis by scrapping the rules.
Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani commended the Egyptian government for its assistance to Yemen throughout the war and asked it to continue providing services to Yemeni expatriates and newcomers to Egypt.