Airstrike kills 10 children in Yemen

By Zakaria al-Kamali

SANAA

At least ten children were killed in an airstrike on a school in Yemen’s stronghold of the Houthi group on Saturday, aid group Doctors Without Borders said.

The group said on Twitter that 28 children were also injured in the attack in Haydan of Saada province.

The aid agency said the children were aged between eight and 15, but without specifying which group was behind the airstrike.

On Saturday, Saudi media said that a senior Houthi leader had been killed in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Saada.

Yemen fell into a civil war in late 2014 when the Houthis and allied forces of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh overran capital Sanaa and other provinces, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive military campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi gains and restoring Hadi’s embattled government.

Backed by Saudi-led airstrikes, pro-Hadi forces have since managed to reclaim large swathes of the country’s south -- including provisional capital Aden -- but have failed to retake Sanaa and other strategic areas.

Last week, UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait between the Yemeni government and Houthis collapsed.