Saudi coalition relaunches Yemen strikes

By Asad Qureshi.

 A SAUDI-LED alliance has launched new airstrikes on Houthi rebels in central and southern Yemen, a day after it said it was ending the bombing campaign.
THE renewed strikes on Wednesday came as the World Health Organization said 1080 people had been killed in violence in Yemen in March and April.
Wednesday's first raids came outside the central city of Taiz, after rebels using tanks seized an army base in the early morning, military officials and local residents said. Troops loyal to exiled President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi were able to withdraw from the base before it fell, the officials said. The Saudi-led coalition, which supports Hadi, struck back hours later. In southern Yemen, where Houthis and allied military units are engaged in fierce fights with local militias, residents said coalition aircraft hit a rebel-held army base near the town of al-Houta. Saudi Arabia and Sunni Arab allies launched their air campaign against the Houthis on March 26, after the rebels and army units linked to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh forced Hadi to flee the country. The coalition said on Tuesday its air campaign had been successful in destroying heavy weaponry and missiles held by the Houthis and their allies, and that its operations would move into a new phase centred on supporting civilians as well as preventing Houthi movements. Meanwhile, the WHO has put the total death toll between March 19 and April 20 at 1080. The dead included 28 children and 48 women, while more than 4000 people had been injured, it said. Before this week's deadly airstrikes, the UN put the civilian-only death toll between March 26 and April 18 at 436. The Red Cross warned that the number of civilian casualties was alarming. "More and more civilians are killed by indiscriminate shooting and street fighting in Aden," the international humanitarian organisation wrote on Twitter. The Red Cross also warned that hundreds of people had been detained in mass arrests in major cities of Yemen, and essential services had been severely disrupted.