Air strikes kill 62 as Yemen's president rejects peace plan

At least 62 people were killed in multiple air strikes across Yemen carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on Saturday, local officials and medical sources said.

The coalition has been fighting Houthi rebels since March 2015 to restore to office internationally-recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi, who was sidelined from power by the Iranian-allied group in late 2014

A coalition air strike in Yemen's southwestern province of Taiz hit a residential area and left 17 civilians dead.

"All those in the houses were killed," said a Yemeni official, adding a child and seven women were among the dead.

In the same day coalition warplanes struck a prison in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah, killing 45 including inmates.

The prison in the city's al-Zaydiyah district was holding 84 prisoners when it was struck three times late on Saturday, the sources said.

There was no immediate comment from the coalition.

The incidents came hours after Yemen's exiled President Hadi rejected a UN peace plan to end the conflict in the country.

The conflict in Yemen has killed at least 10,000 people and unleashed one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, according to the UN which has been trying to lead peace efforts in the country.

The latest peace proposal by the UN to end the turmoil would only be a path to more war and destruction since it "legitimises the Houthi coup," according to Hadi.

Speaking after meeting UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheickh Ahmed in Riyadh, Hadi said the agreement would "reward the rebels and penalise the Yemeni people and legitimacy," the government-controlled Saba news agency reported.

According to a copy of the proposal, the plan would sideline Hadi, and set up a government of less divisive figures.

Hadi fled the armed advance of the Iranian-allied Houthi movement in March 2015 and has been a guest of neighbouring Saudi Arabia ever since.

A UN Security Council resolution a month later recognised him as the legitimate head of state and called on the Houthis to disarm and quit Yemen's main cities. But the Houthis and their allies in Yemen's army have said he will never return.