ARMED GROUPS KILL GERMAN EMBASSY GUARD, KIDNAP UNICEF EXPERT
Sanaa, 2 Dzul Hijjah 1434/7 October 2013 (MINA) – An official source speaking for the Foreign and Interior Ministries said that an armed men group shot dead a German citizen who is a guard at the German embassy in Sanaa as he left a supermarket in Hadda neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.
Another terrorist group kidnapped an expert from Sierra Leone who works for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as he was on his way to the Sanaa airport.
In a statement to Saba News Agency (SANA) quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), the source condemned killing the German guard as an attempt to harm the distinguished Yemeni-German relationship, especially considering the fact that Germany stands by the Yemeni people and government and work for the security, stability and unity of Yemen.
That attack in an apparent attempt to kidnap Carola Mueller – Holtkemper, the German ambassador to Yemen, Al Jazeera reports.
Embassy employees in Sanaa and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin declined to comment.
Mueller-Holtkemper had only recently arrived in Yemen and presented her credentials to Yemeni authorities less than a week ago, a statement on the embassy’s website showed.
Meanwhile, UNICEF expert was captured at gunpoint from a UN vehicle in the north of the city. His Yemeni driver was not kidnapped.
Earlier attacks
The attacks were the latest on foreigners and local officials in Yemen, which is battling one of the most active branches of al-Qaeda.
In November last year gunmen shot dead a Saudi diplomat and his Yemeni bodyguard in Sanaa in an attack believed to be the work of the group.
A month earlier, masked gunmen shot dead a Yemeni man who worked in the security office of the US Embassy in Sanaa.
Germany was one of several Western countries to close its Yemen embassy in early August after warnings of a possible major terror attack in the Middle East. The mission reopened two weeks later. (T/P09/E1).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
