Flight attendant: Azza Ramzi Mohamed Hassan passed away in KSA’s Airport

What struck me most reading through this story was how ordinary the victim’s day must have started. A 28-year-old flight attendant called Azza Ramzi Mohamed Hassan, working for the Saudi airline flynas, was going about her job at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport when the attack happened. She didn’t survive her injuries. Here is what I found out.

This is a sad story, and I want to be careful with it. Twelve people lost their lives in an attack on a civilian airport, and more than 300 others were hurt. That’s not a number to scroll past, especially for those of us in Kuwait who fly through this region all the time.

Who was killed?

GACA confirmed the overall casualty figures in a statement after the attack, including the nationalities of those who died. Four of the twelve were Saudi citizens. The other eight were foreign residents: two from Bangladesh, and one each from Egypt, the United States, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Sudan.

GACA’s statement didn’t name the Egyptian victim directly. It was Egyptian media that identified her as Azza Ramzi Mohamed Hassan, 28, and reported that she worked as a flight attendant for flynas. According to those reports, she sustained severe injuries in the attack and later died from them.

This comes just a day after Saudia confirmed one of its own pilots had been killed in the earlier round of attacks on Saudi airports, so this is now the second aviation worker from the region we know by name.

What actually happened at the airport?

The attack struck King Khalid International Airport on Saturday afternoon, causing both casualties and damage to the facilities, GACA said. Operations at the airport were suspended for a time while officials checked the safety of the buildings and runways and assessed how much damage had been done.

Of the 309 injured, several remain in critical condition and are being treated in hospital. Authorities say they’re still working out the full extent of the damage to the airport itself.

The disruption didn’t stay contained to Riyadh. Flights in and out of the airport were affected, and the knock-on effect reached passengers across the region, including here. Kuwait Airways cancelled a number of its flights to Riyadh in response, and if you’ve got a trip planned anywhere near Saudi Arabia right now, it’s worth checking your airline’s status page before you head to the airport.

This wasn’t an isolated event either. The attack followed earlier strikes on Riyadh’s airport and on a Saudia aircraft, which had already caused deaths and injuries in the days before. We wrote about the earlier toll when it first climbed to 12 dead and 309 hurt, and separately about earlier attacks on Abha and Riyadh airports that killed three people and injured 36.

Who’s being blamed, and what happens next?

The Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen condemned the attack, accusing the Houthi group of carrying out what it called a terrorist strike against civilian infrastructure. Coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al Maliki described it as a war crime under international humanitarian law and said there would be a firm response in line with the rules governing armed conflict.

No further detail has been given yet on what that response will look like, or on a timeline for it.

What this means if you live in Kuwait

For anyone in Kuwait with family, friends or colleagues who fly regularly through Saudi airports, this is understandably worrying news. Riyadh is a major transit hub for people travelling across the Gulf, and repeated attacks on its airport raise real questions about civilian aviation safety in the region right now.

If you have an upcoming flight connecting through Riyadh, I’d check directly with your airline rather than assume things are back to normal. Airport operations were suspended once already this week, and with facilities still being assessed, further disruption isn’t out of the question.

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