Yemen blames ISIS for nun killings

Yemeni authorities have blamed ISIS for an attack on a care home run by missionaries that killed 16 people and was condemned by Pope Francis as “diabolical”.

Rival jihadist movement Al Qaeda distanced itself from the mass shooting on Friday in the main southern city of Aden, saying it was not responsible.

Gunmen stormed the refuge for the elderly operated by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, killing a Yemeni guard before tying up and shooting 15 other employees, officials said. Four foreign nuns working as nurses were among those killed. The Vatican missionary news agency Fides identified the nuns as two Rwandans, a Kenyan and an Indian, adding that the mother superior managed to hide and survive while an Indian priest was missing.

Screams of elderly residents echoed from the home during the shooting rampage, witnesses said, recounting seeing the bodies of slain workers with their arms tied behind their back. No group has yet claimed the attack.

The Vatican’s secretary of atate Pietro Parolin said that “his Holiness Pope Francis was shocked and profoundly saddened to learn of the killing of four Missionaries of Charity (nuns) and 12 others at a home for the elderly in Aden.”

“He sends the assurance of his prayers for the dead and his spiritual closeness to their families and to all affected from this act of senseless and diabolical violence,” he said.