ADEN, Yemen, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Six inmates were killed on Sunday in a Saudi-led airstrike at a Houthi-controlled prison in Yemen's southeastern province of Shabwa, a tribal official told Xinhua.
The fighter jets had been hovering for several hours over the airspace of Shabwa, before striking a central prison controlled by Houthis in Bayhan district, the source said on condition of anonymity.
The airstrikes, targeting Houthi fighters in the area, left six inmates killed and a number of others injured, the source said.
He added that the Saudi-led coalition forces also bombed the headquarters of the civilian administration in a nearby area where dozens of Houthi fighters were gathering.
However, the Defense Ministry of the Yemeni government has denied hitting the central prison in Shabwa in a statement posted on its official website.
The statement said that several Houthi fighters including high-ranking commanders were killed in the airstrikes that struck the civilian administration building.
Witnesses told Xinhua that ambulances had rushed to the bombing site and Houthi fighters were deployed around the public hospital in Bayhan.
The Yemeni government, allied with a Saudi-led Arab military coalition, has been battling the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels for years for the control of the country.
In March 2015, a Saudi-led Arab military coalition imposed an air and sea blockade to prevent weapons from reaching the Houthis, who invaded capital Sanaa and seized most of Yemen's northern provinces.
More than 10,000 people, most of which were civilians, have been reportedly killed since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the civil war in 2015.
The impoverished Arab country is also suffering from the world's largest cholera outbreak, where about 5,000 cases of infection are reported every day.
