Saudi coalition air strike kills nine civilians near Yemen's Sanaa

At least nine civilians, including four children, were killed on Thursday in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on a block of flats north of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, residents said.

At least five other people were injured in the attack early on Thursday on the three-storey apartment building in the Amran provincial capital, Amran city, north of Sanaa, they said.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said he was checking the report.

The coalition, which has been fighting since 2014 to roll back gains made by the Iranian-backed Houthi group and restore ousted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power, says it does not target civilians. However, the attack was the latest raid to have struck civilians since August.

Previous non-military targets include a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, a strike which prompted the international medical charity to withdraw staff from northern Yemen.

Residents in Amran said the block of flats was struck three times while an adjacent school was also hit twice in the air strike. No one was hurt in the school which was empty because the new academic year has yet to start.

Rescue workers were still sifting through the rubble searching for more victims.

The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people to date, according to the United Nations. It has also displaced more than three million people.

Hadi's government, backed by the coalition, began an offensive on Houthi positions outside the capital Sanaa in early August after the latest round of peace talks ended in Kuwait without an agreement. But little progress has been reported on the ground by either side.