On Wednesday, June 15, 2022, a bomb planted in the car of Saber al-Haidari, a reporter with the Japanese state broadcaster NHK, exploded while he was driving in the southern port city of Aden’s al-Mansoura district, killing him at the scene, according to news reports, the press freedom advocacy organization Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, and the regional human rights group Gulf Center for Human Rights.

Two unidentified individuals traveling with al-Haidari were also killed in the blast, and one was injured, according to the Gulf Center. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, according to those news reports.

Al-Haidari also worked in the public relations department of the Yemeni government’s Ministry of Information, according to reports. Since late 2020, the Yemeni government has been engaged in a power-sharing deal with the Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist group that controls Aden.

Al-Haidari’s death is part of a pattern of journalists being targeted in Yemen, particularly in Aden, where Rasha al-Harazi was killed in a car in bombing November 2021, and unidentified gunmen shot and killed Nabil al-Quaety outside his home in June 2020.

Journalists across the country have faced increasing risks, with little recourse to justice amid the breakdown of law and order in Yemen. The U.N. Human Rights Council formed an investigatory body to independently document human rights abuses in Yemen during the conflict, including attacks on journalists, but the council voted to end the body’s mandate in October 2021.