Pregnant journalist among victims of a suicide car bomb attack in Yemen

A Houthi rebel driving a pickup truck drove a suicide car bomb into a convoy of humanitarian aid workers delivering food aid in western Yemen on Wednesday. The explosion killed one female journalist and wounded at least one other on board the aid vehicles. “We have one dead and we have three wounded on the ground,” the UN spokesman for Yemen spokesman said at a press conference in the capital, Sanaa. CNN affiliate Yemen TV later confirmed the death of Omary Al-Akkani, 28, a journalist working for state-run national TV. Al-Akkani, who was 4 months pregnant at the time of her death, had been covering the operation as it attempted to deliver flour to the northwestern governorate of Taiz. She was killed by flying shrapnel in the explosion. “She was an exceptional journalist who was devoted to her job and had impeccable integrity,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told CNN. Al-Akkani was reportedly in her third trimester and the third pregnant journalist to die in Yemen’s devastating war. The country has been embroiled in a civil war for two years, pitting its internationally recognized government against a rebel group known as the Houthis, which are backed by Iran.