SANAA, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 Houthi rebel fighters have been killed in a series of airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition over the past 24 hours on Yemen's northwestern border city of Medi, the Yemeni government said in a statement on Saturday.
Ten other rebels were wounded in the airstrikes that concentrated on the rebels' sites in south and southeast of the Red Sea port city, said the statement posted on the government official media outlets.
The airstrikes began early Friday morning and lasted until early Saturday morning, said the statement, citing a military official in the Yemeni military forces backed by the coalition.
Meanwhile, the government said it lost four soldiers and four others injured in ground battles against the rebels in the same area, but said the airstrikes helped the government troops to repel the rebel ground attack.
Medi locates on the southern border of Saudi Arabia. The area has been the scene of almost daily fighting between the rival Yemeni forces since more than two years.
The sea off the city has been under control of the naval coalition, while the Yemeni rival forces have been fighting on the opposite edges of the city over controlling the border strategic region.
The civil war erupted in the Arab poor country in 2015, few months after Houthi rebels stormed and seized control over the capital Sanaa and most of the northern provinces and ousted the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.
The coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, intervened in March 2015 to defeat the rebels and reinstate Hadi into power.
Over 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed, mainly by airstrikes, during the war.
