At least 12 civilians, including children, were killed Saturday in a car bomb blast near the airport of Aden, the Yemeni government’s interim capital, security officials said.
“Twelve civilians were killed in an explosion” in the vicinity of Aden airport and “there are also serious injuries,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Another security official confirmed the toll.
A spokesman from the Southern Transitional Council (STC) — part of Yemen’s government — said the blast was caused by a car bomb explosion.
“A car bomb was detonated, killing a number of our peaceful citizens, including children, and wounding a number of other civilians,” STC spokesman Ali Al-Kathiri said in a statement.
The explosion comes almost three weeks after six people were killed in a car-bomb attack that targeted Aden’s governor, who survived.
AFP footage on Saturday showed people pulling out a body from a vehicle that had been completely destroyed, as firefighters put out flames nearby.
The internationally recognized government relocated to Aden from the capital Sanaa in 2014, forced out by the Houthis, who are fighting Yemeni government loyalists.
An Arab military coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for Saturday’s blast, which is the deadliest in the area since December last year, when an attack targeting cabinet members ripped through Aden’s airport.
At least 26 people, including three members of the International Committee of the Red Cross, were killed and scores were wounded when explosions rocked the airport at the time, as ministers disembarked from an aircraft.
All cabinet members were reported to be unharmed, in what some ministers charged was a Houthi attack.