Sana’a: Germany’s envoy in Yemen escaped a kidnapping attempt on Sunday in the capital Sana’a during which her bodyguard was killed, a diplomatic source told AFP.
Ambassador Carola Miller-Holtkemper’s bodyguard was shot dead as he tried to protect her from gunmen who attempted to kidnap the envoy as she left a store in Sana’a’s southern Hada district, where foreign embassies are located, the source said.
The employee had been working on the embassy’s security team, two of the sources said. He was gunned down in Sana’a’s Hada district, where the embassy is also based.
“He was leaving the market to go to his vehicle,” one source said, adding that the attack bore the hallmarks of Al Qaida’s Yemeni branch.
Embassy employees in Sana’a and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin declined to comment.
Western diplomatic sources confirmed the attack without specifying the victim’s identity or his position at the embassy.
Yemen is struggling to curb one of the most active branches of Al Qaida, known as Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has attempted to attack several Western targets, including airliners.
Germany was one of several Western countries to close their Yemen embassies in early August after a US warning of a possible major militant attack in the Middle East. The mission reopened after a two-week closure.
