Yemeni officials said Saudi airstrikes targeting a military base on Tuesday hit a nearby school, injuring at least a half dozen students.
The information came from two officials with the governor’s office in Ibb province, where the school is located, as well as Houthi sources from the rebel group that is fighting for control of the country.
A third source, with the Education Ministry in Ibb, said three students had been killed at the Al Bastain School in Maitam, in southwestern Yemen, as a result of an airstrike.
The officials from Ibb’s governor’s office said the Al Hamza military base was targeted because Houthis have been sending reinforcements from Ibb to nearby provinces. There were no casualties on the base, the officials said, but it was heavily damaged.
The school, which is about 500 meters (one-third of a mile) from the base, was not the main target, the officials said. Schoolchildren were heading to their lunch break when the attacks took place, the officials said.
The incident was another example of what has become evident in recent days: The chaos in Yemen, now the scene of some of the most chaotic fighting in the Middle East, has left civilians — noncombatants, both locals and foreigners — caught in the crossfire.
Those trying to escape the violence, either by leaving their homes or by leaving the country altogether, have been flung into a vortex of fear, fatigue, flight and death.
Explosions have shattered the windows of residents of Sanaa, the country’s capital. The fighting has killed hundreds of people in less than two weeks.
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At least 74 children are known to have been killed and 44 children maimed since the fighting began on March 26, UNICEF said Monday in a statement. That did not include the children reportedly killed Tuesday in Maitam.
-(CNN)
