16 killed in Yemen care home attack

Gunmen attacked a care home run by missionaries in Yemen's jihadist-plagued southern city of Aden yesterday, killing 16 workers including four Indian nuns, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Aden has seen a surge in attacks by the Islamic State group and rival al-Qaeda.

Four gunmen entered the refuge operated by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Aden's Sheikh Othman district, killing a guard before tying up and shooting employees, security officials told AFP.

Screams of elderly residents echoed from the home during the shooting rampage, witnesses said. They recounted seeing the bodies of slain workers with their arms tied behind their backs scattered on the blood-stained floor as the aged residents cried out in fear.

Apart from the four Indians, the rest of those killed were Yemenis working at the facility, officials 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 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 Huthi rebels and their allies since they seized it in September 2014.