KHARTOUM/ADEN (Reuters) - Five Sudanese soldiers have been killed while fighting for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition against Houthi forces in Yemen, a spokesman for Sudan’s armed forces said on Wednesday.

The statement was a rare acknowledgement of casualties suffered by Sudan since the east African nation sent hundreds of its soldiers to Yemen in 2015 to bolster the mostly Gulf Arab alliance fighting the Iran-allied Houthi movement.

“We lost five martyrs and 22 others have been wounded ... we inflicted huge losses on the enemy and are holding many prisoners of war,” said army spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Khalifa al-Shami.

The army gave no further details on the incident.

The coalition includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Senegal and Sudan.

Yemeni military sources said the Sudanese soldiers were killed when Yemeni forces backed by the coalition took control of a volcanic mountain on a road toward the Khalid bin al-Waleed military base, a key stronghold of the Houthis in southwestern Taiz province.

More than 10,000 people have been killed by coalition air strikes and fighting on the ground as the coalition has fought to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.