More than 1,146 Houthi fighters were killed or wounded during clashes in the southwestern province of Taiz in 2020, the army of the internationally backed Yemen government said on Sunday.

"As many as 462 Houthi militiamen were killed, including prominent field leaders, and more than 684 others were injured during the ongoing battles with the National Army forces during the year 2020," the media centre of the Yemeni army's Taiz military division said in a statement.

It added that the Commander of Brigade 17, Ali Abdul-Razzaq Al-Sharia, and the Commander of the Western Region, Brigadier General Abdul-Rahman Al-Mutawakel, were amongst those killed.

The national army has made significant gains and is now in control of a number of sites, it has also destroyed 13 military vehicles, six cannons and eight machine guns and shot down three Houthi drones.

Pro-government forces control the city of Taiz while the Houthis control the city's outskirts