Iran said on Tuesday its envoy to Yemen's rebel Houthi movement has died of COVID-19 after being repatriated last week, blaming Saudi Arabia for delaying his departure from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Deceased diplomat who caught coronavirus in Yemen was evacuated too slowly, says Iranian spokesperson

Tehran (AFP) - Iran's envoy to Yemen died of Covid Tuesday despite his evacuation from the rebel-held capital Sanaa in a rare exemption from a Saudi-led air blockade, the foreign ministry said. 

The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition condemned on Tuesday the "defamatory" statements by Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, on the Coalition’s humanitarian stance in regards to the evacuation of Hassan Irlu, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards member and Tehran's so-called ambassador to Sanaa who recently died from COVID-19. In a…

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Wednesday it had helped get Iran's sick ambassador out of the country before he died, rejecting an Iranian accusation that the envoy's evacuation had been delayed.

Hassan Irlu, the Iranian “ambassador” to the Tehran-backed Houthi militias, left Sanaa for Baghdad on Saturday following an Omani and Iraqi mediation, based on claims that he was infected with the coronavirus. Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the militias were facing great challenges with the…