The explosion occurred in Aden when Rasha Abdullah al-Harazi and her family were seeing a doctor, officials say.
A Yemeni journalist and her child were killed in a car bomb attack that targeted her family’s vehicle in the southern city of Aden, Yemen, officials said. The explosion was the last to shake the seat of the internationally recognized government.
Neither group immediately admitted to the attack, which occurred Tuesday, and authorities said an investigation was ongoing.
Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed described the explosion as a “terrorist attack” caused by an improvised explosive device stuck in Rasha Abdullah al-Harazi’s vehicle.
The explosion occurred in Aden’s Khormaksar neighborhood when al-Harazi and her family went to see a doctor, officials said.
Al-Harazi, who works for Asharq satellite television in the United Arab Emirates, was pregnant.
Al-Harazi and her child Jawad died on the scene, while her husband Mahmoud al-Atmi, also a journalist, was seriously injured and hospitalized in critical condition, officials said. Three passers-by were also injured, they added.
The coastal city of Aden has been rocked by several explosions in recent years attributed to local branches of the armed groups al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also targeted the city with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones.
Last month at least eight people were killed in a car bomb explosion near a security checkpoint outside Aden International Airport in Khormaksar. No group took responsibility for this attack.
Aden has been the seat of the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi since the Houthis conquered the capital Sanaa in 2014 and sparked the civil war in Yemen.
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition entered the war with the support of the United States in March 2015 in an attempt to bring the government back to power. Despite a relentless aerial campaign and ground fighting, the war has largely reached a dead end and produced the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
‘High price’
“Journalists in Yemen pay a high price for their work and are targeted by all parties to the conflict,” said the Golf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) on Thursday.
“They are subjected to numerous forms of harassment, threats and intimidation to prevent them from doing their journalistic work, most recently through the use of explosive devices to kill them,” the statement said.
“The GCHR condemns the brutal attacks on innocent journalists and shares the grief and sorrow with their family, friends and colleagues,” it added, calling on local Aden authorities to conduct a “full and independent investigation” into the killing of Harazi.
The EU 🇪🇺 condemns the attack on journalist Rasha al-Harazi and her husband Mahmoud al-Otmi in #Aden, in which the pregnant al-Harazi was killed and al-Otmi was seriously injured. Offenders must be brought to justice. Human rights violations against journalists affect freedom of expression. pic.twitter.com/eycJrndK1c
– EUinYemen (@EUinYemen) November 10, 2021
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate issued a statement condemning the incident, describing it as “a terrible and unprecedented crime targeting unarmed journalists on their way to the hospital”.
The syndicate also said it feared the incident was “an indicator of a new and violent phase targeting journalists in Yemen”.
