Yemeni soldiers stand guard during a rally to mark two years of the military intervention by the Saudi-led coalition, in Sanaa, on March 26, 2017.

The Sudanese army said on Tuesday that five of its troops have been killed while fighting for the Saudi-led Arab coalition against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The army did not specify when the troops were killed, but Sudan has deployed hundreds of soldiers as part of the coalition that is fighting the rebels backed by Iran in a war which the United Nations says has already left around 7,700 people dead and 42,500 wounded.

Khartoum joined the Coalition led by Saudi Arabia in 2015 after breaking decades-old ties with Tehran. The Sudanese military has largely refrained from offering details of its operations within the coalition or of casualties it has suffered in the conflict so far.

Injuries reported

But in a rather rare announcement late Tuesday the army said it had lost five troops in Yemen, including an officer. “We have lost five martyrs including an officer, and 22 others have been wounded,” army spokesman Brigadier Ahmed Khalifa al-Shami said in a statement.

Without offering details, he said Sudanese forces had completed on Tuesday their “first stage of duty” in Yemen and were now preparing to launch the second stage.

“Our troops in Yemen have captured all the areas targeted in the first stage, inflicted big losses on the enemy and are holding many prisoners of war,” Khalifa said. In January 2016 the army had said it had lost one soldier in Yemen.