Twenty-two soldiers from the United Arab Emirates’ military have been killed while taking part in a Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, according to the country’s state news agency WAM.

Saudi Arabia and a coalition of other mostly Arab states have been fighting since March to restore Yemen’s exiled government and to repel the Houthis, who took control of the capital Sanaa in September last year.

At least five other Emirati soldiers have been killed in Yemen since the offensive began.

There were conflicting reports of the cause of the 22 soldiers’ deaths.

The Houthis said they fired a rocket at a weapons cache in a camp used by coalition forces in the central Marib area, killing dozens of Emirati and Yemeni soldiers and destroying a number of Apache helicopters and armed vehicles, according to the Reuters news agency.

In contrast, Yemeni military sources told the AFP news agency that Arab coalition soldiers were among those killed in what they said was an accidental explosion at an ammunition store. Al Jazeera