CAIRO (Reuters) - Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi appointed Mohammed al-Maqdishi as minister of defense, state news agency SABA reported on Wednesday.

Hadi appointed Abdullah Al-Nakhi as new Chief of Staff, the agency said.

Saudi Arabia is leading a Western-backed alliance of Sunni Muslim Arab states to try to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government, ousted from the capital Sanaa by the Iran-aligned Houthis in 2015.

The United Nations has no up-to-date estimate of the death toll in Yemen. It said in August 2016 that according to medical centers at least 10,000 people had been killed. The humanitarian situation has worsened sharply since 2015, putting millions on the brink of starvation and ravaging the already weak economy.