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A suicide car bomb attack on an army training camp in Yemen’s second city of Aden killed at least 45 people, medical sources say.

A security source said that the attacker drove his vehicle into a gathering of new recruits at the camp in northern Aden on Monday.

The blast killed 45 people and wounded 29 others, medical sources said from the three hospitals where victims were taken.

Security officials had said earlier that the death toll was 11.

“It’s a massacre. This is the highest death toll in any attack that happened in Aden before,” Hakim Almasmari, editor-in-chief of Yemen Post newspaper, said.

The port city, the temporary base of Yemen’s Arab Gulf-backed government, has seen a wave of bombings and shootings targeting officials and security forces.

Later on Monday, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Yemeni authorities have trained hundreds of soldiers in Aden over the past two months as part of operations to retake neighbouring southern provinces from fighters.

Earlier this month, Yemen government forces entered Abyan’s provincial capital Zinjibar.

Troops retook other towns across Abyan but have been met by fierce resistance in a key al-Qaeda stronghold, Al-Mahfid, a town which lies further east, security sources said.

The fighters are still present in areas surrounding the recaptured towns and control large parts of the neighbouring Shabwa province, the sources say. — AFP