Travellers with any lingering plans involving Yemen should take note: the situation in Sanaa has just taken a sharp turn for the worse.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, Major General Turki al-Maliki, issued a public warning urging civilians to leave the Yemen Petroleum Company site at the al-Sabaha Central Station, located on the outskirts of the capital, ahead of what the command described as a special operation. The announcement, posted on X with a map of the targeted location, came shortly before reports of strikes.
Almost immediately, the Houthis responded in kind. Their military spokesman, Yahya Saree, warned all employees and civilians near any facility belonging to Saudi Aramco to evacuate, declaring those facilities legitimate targets for Houthi forces. In effect, both sides gave rival evacuation orders on the same day, each framing the other's infrastructure as fair game — oil installations on Yemeni soil in one direction, Saudi energy assets in the other.
This is an escalation of the long-running conflict between the Saudi-backed coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, and it puts civilian infrastructure and energy facilities at the centre of the fight. Evacuation warnings posted on social media, rather than coordinated humanitarian corridors, underline how unpredictable the security situation has become.
For anyone considering travel: Yemen remains one of the most dangerous places on earth for foreign visitors, and Sanaa's airspace and borders have been effectively closed to ordinary tourism for years. There is no practical way to visit as a holidaymaker, and governments including the UK, US and most EU states advise against all travel to the country. Anyone with humanitarian, journalistic or essential business there needs specialist security arrangements and, in most cases, cannot obtain standard travel insurance for the region.
The useful takeaway from this story is really about the wider region. Saudi Arabia's Aramco facilities — now explicitly named as Houthi targets — stretch across the kingdom, including sites in areas normally considered tourism-adjacent, such as the Eastern Province and Red Sea coast. Travellers already in Saudi Arabia should monitor local news, keep an eye on embassy alerts, and steer well clear of any industrial or energy sites, which have been struck in previous rounds of the conflict.
If the Red Sea and Arabian Peninsula are on your travel wishlist for the coming months, safer alternatives abound: Oman offers dramatic wadis and a calm, welcoming capital in Muscat; Jordan remains a reliable classic with Petra and Wadi Rum; and even Egypt's Red Sea resorts sit outside the current flashpoints. None of them shares Yemen's risk profile.
This is a fast-moving situation, and it is not one where 'wait and see' applies to tourism — there is currently no tourism to speak of, and there will not be while active military operations target the capital's infrastructure. Anyone planning travel anywhere near the southern Arabian Peninsula should rely on their foreign ministry's latest advice rather than any guidebook or holiday site, including this one.
Story first reported by Daily Sabah.
