Aden/Kolkata/Thiruvananthapuram, March 4 (IANS) Four nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, including one from India, were killed by unidentified gunmen at a care home for the elderly in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, a spokesperson for the Mother Teresa-founded Catholic Order said.
The Indian nun has been identified as Sister M. Anseleme, 57, from Jharkhand. Of the other three nuns, two were from Rwanda and another from Kenya, the spokesperson said in Kolkata.
The spokesperson said three of the assailants barged into the home on Friday morning and opened fire indiscriminately on the sisters and the volunteers.
However, the gunmen did not target the inmates.
According to information received by the MoC, another of its nuns and a priest were missing, though they seemed to have survived.
In Thiruvananthapuram, a Kerala government official said that a nun and a priest from the state were in the care home.
Speaking to IANS, the official, who did not want to be identified, said that after hearing about the media reports of the Aden attack, they managed to establish contacts with people in Yemen.
"What we have been told is that a Kerala nun attached to the Missionaries of Charity was there and is believed to have escaped, while a priest who was residing in the home is not reachable on his mobile," said the official.
The home, set up by Mother Teresa in 1992, houses 61 elderly destitutes.
A Xinhua report earlier, quoting a local security official, said that 17 people including four Indian nurses were killed.
A group of well-armed gunmen stormed the home in Sheikh Othman district and opened random fire after killing the building's guards, the official said.
A senior official of Aden's local government told Xinhua that suspected gunmen of the Yemen-based affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) group were behind the terrorist attack.
Aden, Yemen's temporary capital, has been witnessing chaos and lawlessness during the past weeks, resulting in the assassination of its former governor, several high-ranking security officers and judges.
