Date: Apr 12, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Arab coalition airstrikes hit Yemeni capital Reuters SANAA: The Arab coalition fighting in Yemen carried out airstrikes against two Houthi targets in the capital Sanaa early Wednesday, its spokesman said. The coalition said the strikes targeted a Houthi drone-manufacturing plant and a warehouse containing launch pads. The Western-backed Arab alliance has been fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in neighboring Yemen since March 2015, after Houthi forces drove Yemeni President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi into exile. They are fighting to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government. The Houthis, who say their revolution is against corruption, control Sanaa and most population centers. The strikes hit Al-Jeraf neighborhood in north Sanaa. Although a cease-fire agreed in December for the port city of Hodeida largely holds, violence continues elsewhere and has escalated in recent weeks. A blast hit Sanaa near two schools Sunday, the United Nations and Houthi-run media has said. “It was almost lunch time and students were in class. The blast shattered the windows and unleashed a burst of shrapnel and broken glass into the classrooms,” said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s Middle East head. Funerals for 12 of the killed pupils, all girls, were held Wednesday, their coffins carried by a crowd through the streets of Sanaa. Aid group Doctors Without Borders said a flare up in fighting in the Abs region in recent days has forced 18,000 from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already displaced in that area.