Authorities in Yemen say militants who burst into a retirement home in Aden have killed at least 15 people, including four Christian nuns from India.
Security officials said the attackers fired automatic weapons as they entered the rest home Friday morning. One account said the unidentified militants first shot the nuns, who worked as nurses at the home, then tied up and shot the elderly residents.
Attacks against citizens
Local authorities and staff at a hospital in Aden operated by Doctors Without Borders told reporters the dead included the four nuns, two Yemeni women who worked at the home, eight elderly residents and a guard. The retirement facility was in Aden’s Sheikh Osman district.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, although the Islamic State group has been linked to a wave of recent terror attacks in Aden.
The southern port was recaptured last year by a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government, and it has been designated the country’s temporary capital despite a wave of lawlessness and fighting.
Sana’a, in northern Yemen, has been in the hands of Houthi rebels and their Iranian supporters for more than a year.
On Thursday, the U.N. humanitarian chief criticized all parties to the Yemen conflict for attacks against civilians.
Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council the most pressing concern in Yemen now is protecting civilians. Since Yemen’s civil war began nearly a year ago, he said, 2,000 children have been injured or killed by from airstrikes, shelling, ground fighting and unexploded artillery.
The U.N. and its partners estimate that more than 80 percent of Yemen’s population, over 21 million people, require some form of humanitarian assistance or physical protection.
The United Nations has launched an international appeal for $1.8 billion to meet Yemen’s humanitarian needs this year.