A global media watchdog has called for an urgent investigation into an arson attack on a newspaper group in Yemen's Aden, AFP reported Wednesday (March 7th).
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the March 1st attack on Al-Shomou publishing house showed media faced attack across Yemen, in the government-controlled south as well as the north, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis (Ansarallah).
Al-Shomou publishes a daily and a weekly newspaper.
In a video purportedly captured by Al-Shomou security cameras and widely shared by Yemeni journalists on social media, armed men wearing masks are seen breaking into the printing room before dawn and herding staff outside at gunpoint.
One of the gunmen then returns to douse the presses with petrol and set them on fire in mid print-run.
"The arson attack on Al-Shomou Foundation's newspapers shows that journalists are being targeted with impunity across every inch of Yemen," the CPJ's Sherif Mansour said in a statement late Tuesday.
He called on "all authorities" in Aden to find out who was behind the attack.
