Unknown gunmen attacked a care home for the elderly in Yemen’s southern port city Aden on Friday, killing 17 people including four Indian nurses, a security official said.
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Aden was once a cosmopolitan city home to thriving Hindu and Christian communities but its small Christian population left long ago.
Dozens of stricken family members arrived at the site following the attack, witnesses said.
Four nuns, including one from India, also had two nuns from Rwanda and one from Kenya, informed Sunita Kumar, spokesperson of the Missionaries of Charity.
Meanwhile, local sources have put the death toll higher, saying that 12 elderly residents of the home had also been killed but the officials have not confirmed that figure.
The gunmen opened fire at people and staff in the house, which led to the killing of 16, including four Indian nuns and a guard, the official explained.
This is the second attack on the Missionaries of Charity nuns in Yemen.
A nun who survived the attack told Reuters that she had hid inside a fridge in a storeroom after hearing a guard warning people to run.
Three Missionaries of Charity were killed by a gunman in Al Hudaydah, 280 miles northwest of Aden, in 1998.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government is based in Aden as Iran-backed rebels are in control of the capital Sana’a.
The impoverished Muslim nation on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula has faced violence for years, some of it tied to al Qaeda elements that found a home there. They include Yemenis, Indians and Ethiopians, the source said, adding that seven women were among those killed.
In the summer, a Catholic church was burned by Islamic extremists.
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Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, speaking to reporters after a UN Security Council meeting on the Yemen crisis, told reporters he was concerned that prospects for peace talks were dim.
