RT Arabic stringer Salah Al-Aklu and his family will be evacuated from Yemen after receiving death threats, Sputnik and RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has indicated.
"The threats began after a friend and colleague who collaborated with our Ruptly video agency was shot dead outside his home in Yemen a few days ago," she wrote, referring to the killing of al-Quaety, a photojournalist working with a number of news organizations, including Ruptly, Agence France-Presse, and others.
Simonyan thanked Russia's foreign ministry and the Russian ambassador in Yemen, saying they are helping in the urgent evacuation of Al-Aklu and his family from the war-torn country.
Killing of Nabil Hasan al-Quaety
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Aden on Friday to attend Nabil al-Quaety's funeral, carrying portraits and describing him as a "martyr" given his support for southern Yemen's independence.
34-year-old al-Quaety was gunned down in a vehicle outside his home on Tuesday, and is survived by his pregnant wife and three children. He had covered the Yemen war since 2015. The suspects believed responsible for his murder were caught on security camera footage, but have yet to be apprehended.
On Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists demanded a thorough investigation into al-Quaety's death, and asked that the perpetrators of the murder be held to account.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) director Audrey Azoulay condemned the journalist's death on Thursday, and called on all parties in Yemen's civil war "to respect their obligation under the Geneva Conventions to protect journalists."
The Yemeni port city of Aden is controlled mostly by militants loyal to the Southern Transitional Council, which seeks to restore the state of South Yemen, which ceased to exist in 1990 when the country unified. The STC is fighting the Saudi-backed government forces of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Both are fighting the Houthi militia and political movement, which seized control of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa in 2014. The foreign-backed civil war in Yemen has caused the deaths of over 100,000 people, and the UN has warned that 22 million people, or 75 percent of the country's population, are in dire need of humanitarian aid amid the Saudi-led coalition's blockade of much of the country.
RT Arabic journalists have faced particular danger covering the numerous conflict across the Middle East. In January, correspondent Wafa Shabrouney was seriously injured and evacuated to the St. Petersburg Military Academy Clinic for treatment while covering fighting in the Syrian province of Idlib.
