Sana’a: A bomb at Sana’a University killed a gardener and wounded at least two students on Tuesday, police and medical sources said, in a relatively rare attack on Al Houthi-ruled Yemeni capital.
A police official at the scene said the explosion appeared to have targeted an exhibition organised by Al Houthi’s Ansar Allah group, which controls most of northern Yemen. The event was commemorating the country’s 1990 unification, a security official said.
Several people were also seriously wounded, the official said, adding that death toll was likely to rise.
Al Houthis were commemorating the May 22, 1990 unification of Yemen after centuries of separation between the north and south, where British colonial rule was followed by a Soviet-backed communist regime.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Islamist militants have exploited Yemen’s 14-month civil war which has pitted the Iran-allied Al Houthis against supporters of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is backed by a Saudi Arab coalition, to strike at both sides at will.
The warring parties, pushed by the common threat posed by the emboldened Islamist militants, have been trying to resolve their differences at UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait.
Despite the conflict, there have been relatively few recent attacks in Sana’a. Daesh said it carried out an attack on a mosque in Sana’a last October that killed seven people.
Officials at the main hospital in Sana’a said the gardener, who they did not name, died of injuries sustained in the explosion.
