Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen prison 'kill over 60'

The officials say the airstrikes took place on Sunday and targeted a university in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels use as a detention center.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief the media.

The Houthi-run Health Ministry said many of the wounded, over 60, and dead were captured government fighters.

The Saudi-led coalition says it was targeting storage for drones and missiles.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was deeply concerned by accounts that a detention facility had been hit, and was sending medical teams and hundreds of body bags to the city of Dhamar.

"We are taking these reports extremely seriously. I am on my way to Dahmar #Yemen to assess the situation," said Franz Rauchenstein, head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen.

"We have visited detainees in this location before, as we do in other places as part of our work," he said on Twitter.

The coalition intervened in support of the Yemeni government in 2015 after the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and closed in on the government's temporary base of Aden.

Since then, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, many of them civilians, relief agencies say.

It has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with much of the country on the brink of famine.

Follow us on Twitter: @The_NewArab