(Photo: China Plus)

ADEN, Yemen, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebel group announced on Wednesday the shooting down of a "spy drone" in the country's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

According to the Houthi-affiliated Masirah television network, "a spy drone of the Saudi-led coalition was downed near the district of Tuhyata in Hodeidah."

The group confirmed that the drone belongs to the Saudi-led coalition and was in a reconnaissance mission over the military sites of the rebels.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia, which has been leading a military coalition against the Iran-allied Houthi militias in Yemen for more than five years.

The coalition intervened in Yemen's civil war in March 2015 to support Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile.

The war killed tens of thousands of people and pushed over 20 million to the brink of famine, according to UN aid agencies.

The UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths has been shuttling between Sanaa and Riyadh to try to rescue a peace deal reached between Yemeni warring parties in Stockholm in 2018.