Aden: At least 16 people, including four Indian nurses, were killed when gunmen opened fire Friday at an elderly care home in Yemen's main southern city of Aden, security officials said.
Four gunmen stormed the facility in Aden's Shaikh Othman district, killing a guard before tying up and shooting employees, the officials told AFP.
Dozens of stricken family members arrived at the site following the attack, witnesses said.
One official said the attackers were "extremists" and blamed the Daesh militant group, which has been gaining ground in Aden in recent months.
The dead nurses were Indian nuns who run Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, the officials said, adding that the rest of those killed were Yemenis working at the home.
"I went out for Friday prayers. When I came back, I found all my friends dead," one of the residents said.
It is not the first deady attack on the Mother Teresa order in Yemen. In 1998, three of its nuns were shot dead in western Yemen by a psychiatric patient who had volunteered to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims in 1992 before returning to the Arabian Peninsula country.
The latest attack comes with Yemen's internationally-recognised government grappling with an Iran-backed rebellion on one side and a growing jihadist presence on the other.
One official said the attackers were "extremists" and blamed the Daesh (the so-called Islamic State) group, which has been gaining ground in Aden in recent months.
President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi has declared Aden to be Yemen's temporary capital as Sanaa remains in the hands of the Houthi rebels and their allies since they seized it in September 2014.
No group claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.
Attacks
Al Qaida and Daesh have stepped up attacks in Aden despite the efforts of the government and its backers in a Saudi-led coalition battling Al Houthis and their allies to secure it.
However, most of the terrorist attacks have targeted coalition forces and pro-government Yemeni troops.
On Monday, a suicide car bombing, also in Shaikh Othman, hit a gathering of loyalist forces killing four people and wounding five others, according to a security official said.
On February 17, a suicide bombing claimed by Daesh killed 14 soldiers.
Al Houthi militants occupied Aden for months before Yemeni forces liberated the city in July.
Hadi denied the presence of Daesh in Yemen, saying those who carry out attacks in their name were actually stooges of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh, who still has influence with Yemenis who served in the army, has purposely sabatoged attempts to broker peace in Yemen, following the entry of a Saudi-led Arab coalition last year which aimed at restoring Hadi’s legitimate government.
Yemen’s Minister of interior, General Hussain Arab told Gulf News on January 30 that investigations with some captured members of these groups showed links to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Al Houthis.
-With inputs from Gulf News
