Sana’a: A car bomb blast tore through dozens of Yemenis lined up at a police academy in Sana’a on Wednesday, killing more than 30 in the latest attack highlighting the country’s growing instability.
Official news agency Saba quoted the interior ministry as saying at least 31 people had died and dozens were wounded in what it described as the “terrorist bombing” targeting potential police recruits.
Unstable and impoverished Yemen has been hit by a wave of violence in recent months, with a powerful militia, known as Al Houthis, clashing with tribal forces and the country’s branch of Al Qaida.
Witness Khaled Ajlan said the early morning blast targeted a group of about 60 “new students who were registering at the police academy”.
The charred remains of the dead, mostly young men, were piled on the sidewalk outside the academy alongside blood-soaked documents they had been carrying.
The wreckage of a car - presumably the one used in the attack - sat nearby, with little remaining but mangled metal and the steering wheel.
Rescue workers loaded bodies into the back of ambulances, which pushed their way through gathered onlookers, many taking pictures of the carnage with their mobile telephones.
The health ministry issued alerts to Sana’a residents urging them to “donate blood at government hospitals to help the wounded”.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast but Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the militant network’s powerful affiliate in Yemen, has claimed responsibility for previous such attacks on security forces.
Speaking at the scene, a member of the unofficial Al Houthi security forces accused “radicals belonging to Al Qaida” of carrying out the attack.
The interior ministry said registration at the academy would be suspended for a week.
Many of the potential recruits had travelled from other parts of the country to the academy and the ministry said that in the future it would register them locally to avoid another such gathering being targeted.
Yemen has been dogged by instability since an uprising forced longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012.
Unrest grew after the Al Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, overran Sana’a unopposed on September 21.
The militia have since expanded their presence in central and western Yemen, meeting fierce resistance from Islamist tribes and Al Qaida militants.
The increasing violence has raised fears of Yemen becoming a failed state fuelling regional instability.
A suicide bomb attack on Al Houthi supporters in central Yemen last week killed 49 people.
Four people including a reporter were killed Sunday in another blast targeting a gathering of Al Houthis in southwestern Yemen, while six militiamen were wounded in a blast in Sana’a on Monday.
AQAP, considered to be Al Qaida’s most dangerous branch, has pledged to fight the Al Houthis.
Yemen is an ally of the United States in its fight against the militant network, allowing Washington to carry out a longstanding drone war on its territory against AQAP.
President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi has struggled to assert his authority since the Al Houthi takeover of the capital.
A new Yemeni government was formed in November as part of a UN-brokered peace deal aimed at restoring stability.
Made up of technocrats, the government was agreed with the Al Houthis and its formation was meant to pave the way for them to loosen their hold on Sana’a, though there have been no signs of the militia abandoning positions.
Authorities are also trying to cope with a longstanding separatist movement in southern areas of the country, where an independent South Yemen existed from the end of British colonial rule in 1967 until union with the north in 1990.
