There were four nuns killed among 16 people killed in Yemen's Aden city on Friday, including an Indian, Cecilia Minj. They were killed when terrorists stormed an elderly care home run by the Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity.
Indian officials said terrorists struck at the home in Sheikh Othman district around 12.30pm (local time). "We have learned that the terrorists, numbering between two and four, asked the guards to open the gate on the pretext of visiting their mothers. On entering, they shot dead the guard and opened fire on the inmates. The assailants escaped soon after the attack," an official said.
"We are trying to ascertain the details of the victims," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
One agency report of the terrorist attack in Yemen's Aden city on Friday said two gunmen surrounded the elderly care home while four others entered the building. The gunmen moved from room to room, handcuffing the victims before shooting them in the head. Besides the nuns, six Ethiopians, a Yemeni cook and Yemeni guards were among those killed, a local official said. One nun who survived and was rescued by locals said she hid inside a fridge in a store room after she heard a Yemeni guard shouting, "run, run".
"The area has been cordoned off and police are investigating the incident," said an Indian official.
Following escalation of violence in Yemen's civil war, the Indian embassy in capital Sanaa was closed last year and all its functions carried out from a camp office in Djibouti, a country neighbouring Yemen across Red Sea. Al-Qaida and Islamic State have been stepping up attacks in Aden.
There are around 80 residents at the home, run by Missionaries of Charity, an organisation established by Mother Teresa. Missionaries of Charity nuns also came under attack in Yemen in 1998 when gunmen killed three nuns in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida.
Source : Times of India
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