Sana’a: A group of gunmen kidnapped a Unicef employee here on Sunday, an official said.

“A Sierra Leonean national working with the Unicef in Sana’a was kidnapped by gunmen near the airport in northern Sana’a,” Xinhua reported quoting a Yemeni interior ministry official as saying.

The official said the initial investigations showed that Al Qaida militants were behind the abduction. Officials at the Unicef confirmed the incident.

The kidnap occurred half an hour after gunmen shot dead a German national working as a security officer at the German embassy in the southern part of Sana’a, according to the interior ministry official.

Meanwhile, an official at the German embassy in Sana’a denied reports that the German ambassador escaped an alleged assassination or kidnapping attempt on Sunday.

He said that Ambassador Carola Muller-Holtkemper was neither at the supermarket nor near the scene when the German national was killed.

Foreigners are frequently kidnapped in Yemen by Al Qaida militants or tribesmen who ask for ransom or for the exchange for their jailed members. Most of the kidnapped have been freed unharmed.