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Sana'a – About 35 workers were killed in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on Sunday on a factory in a northern Yemeni town, medical officials said.
Officials said the air strike hit a drinking water factory in Abas, in the north-western Hajja province, which is controlled by Houthi rebels.
Coalition airstrikes also hit a military base and a technical school in the town, the officials said, but all those present in the factory were civilians.
Saudi Arabia and mainly Gulf Arab allies have been pursuing an air campaign against the Houthis since March in support of President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi, who is currently based in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Rights groups have criticised the Saudi campaign for what they say are repeated strikes in or near populated areas.
The Houthis and the loose alliance of militias who oppose them on the ground have also been accused of indiscriminate shelling of residential areas.
The strike came as reinforcements of pro-Hadi troops supplied by the coalition with tanks and artillery were reported to have arrived in the province of Marib, east of the Houthi-controlled capital.
Anti-Houthi forces backed by coalition airstrikes have been pushing for control of key areas of central Yemen in recent weeks after local fighters expelled the rebels from most of the south, including the country's second largest city Aden.
UN agencies say that over 4 500 people have been killed in the conflict since March, including close to 400 children.
The World Food Programme recently warned that the country, one of the poorest in the Arab world even before fighting flared up, was on the brink of famine.
