The Speaker of the Yemeni Parliament Sheikh Sultan Al-Barakani has said that the assassination of the director of the World Food Program office in Al-Turbah district of Taiz area was an attempt to thwart the first steps to present Taiz as a model for Yemen's exit from its ordeal, as it was chosen as a "international forum" for development efforts.
Al-Barakani said, "A deep stab in the heart perpetrated by the hands that are addicted to harming Yemen, the country which has not recovered from successive stab wounds.."
He added, "The world has barely responded to Yemen's human tragedy and takes the first steps to present Taiz as a model for Yemen's exit from its ordeal, to decide that it be a model international meeting place for development efforts, so that the simple and the disadvantaged will rejoice, but the bandits and terrorist gangs refuse but to practice the hobby of blood shedding and destruction through attacking a UN employee who is a citizen of sisterly Jordan…"
He said, "The attack not only shed the blood of the Jordanian citizen in the city of Turbah, but also shed the blood of every Yemeni who feels disappointment, embarrassment, and sorrow for this Jordanian citizen who came to us carrying the wheat and rice tree."
On Friday noon gunmen targeted a restaurant in the city of Turbah, wounding a number of those who were in the restaurant, including a World Food Program employee, who died of wounds after being taken to the hospital, according to the security committee.