The U.S. has lost seven MQ-9 Reaper drones — $30 million each — in the Yemen region since mid-March during airstrikes against Houthi rebels, a U.S. official said Monday.

"Seven MQ-9s have been shot down since March 15," said the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, without specifying the cause of these losses, the most recent of which occurred on April 22.

Used for both surveillance and attack, these drones represent a total value of approximately $210 million. In addition to these losses, a fighter jet was lost Monday when it fell from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea, in an accident that injured a sailor. The aircraft, a Boeing F/A-18 E fighter, cost $67 million in 2021. The U.S. has been bombing Yemeni Houthi rebels almost daily since March 15 to try to curb the threat they pose to merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

On Monday evening, the Houthi news agency, Saba, reported three U.S. airstrikes on the Harf Sufyan district (northwest). Then in the early hours of Tuesday, the rebels' al-Massirah channel reported two strikes on the Bani Hashish district, northeast of the capital Sanaa, citing the local governorship.

The Houthis, backed by Iran, also claimed Monday that U.S. strikes targeted a migrant detention center in Saadah, their stronghold in the North, killing 68 African migrants who were detained there.

These insurgents, who control large areas of Yemen, have targeted maritime navigation since the end of 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip devastated by the war between Hamas and Israel. They also regularly claim to have launched missile attacks directly on Israel, which says it intercepts them.