A man inspects his car damaged by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen on Jan 8. (AP)

RIYADH, Jan 8, (Agencies): Three civilians including a child have been killed by shelling from Yemen in a border region of Saudi Arabia, official media said on Friday. Several shells from Yemeni territory landed in the Jazan region on Thursday evening, the Saudi Press Agency said, citing the civil defence agency.

“This led to the death of three people, including a child, and (the) injury of nine others who were taken to hospital,” the agency’s spokesman Major Yahya Abdullah al-Qahtani said. Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have intensified cross-border rocket attacks since late last year.

They have also fired ballistic missiles. Around 90 civilians and soldiers have died from shelling and skirmishes in Saudi border regions since March when a Saudi-led military coalition began air and ground action in Yemen. They are supporting local forces against the rebels and their allies, who seized territory from the internationallyrecognised government.

In Yemen, more than 5,800 people have been killed since March, about half of them civilians, according to the United Nations. The Saudi-led coalition and Yemen’s foreign ministry denied Iran’s accusation that Saudi warplanes had hit its embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. Iran on Thursday said the warplanes had attacked its embassy in Yemen’s capital on Wednesday night, an accusation that exacerbated tension between the major Shi’ite and Sunni powers in the region.