MOSCOW, November 26 (RIA Novosti) – Two people attacked by gunmen in Yemen on Tuesday were Belarusian, not Russian as initially reported, a Russian diplomat there said.
Reuters news agency had cited a local police source as saying that gunmen on a motorbike had shot two Russian military instructors in the Yemeni capital Sanaa as they left a hotel.
An employee of the Russian Embassy in Sanaa said the men were Belarusians who were working in Yemen under a private contract. The source said that one of them, a man aged 60-65, died at the scene and the other was taken to a hospital where “doctors are still fighting for his life.”
The diplomat said the Russian Embassy was helping those involved in the incident. Belarus does not have an embassy in Yemen.
A spokesman for the embassy had already denied the reports that the men were Russian military instructors, saying Moscow had suspended military cooperation with Yemen and had not sent any such instructors to the country.
A media spokesperson for the Belarusian Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti that he had no information about his country having sent military instructors to Yemen.
International media reports frequently identify people from other former Soviet countries as Russian.
Updated with new headline and lede, and details of the victims' nationality, recasts throughout.
