Four members of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity order were killed along with 16 other people after an attack by Islamic extremists on a Church-run retirement home in Yemen on Friday.

The Religion News Service (RNS) is reporting on the slaughter which took place Friday when four armed men attacked the convent and home for the elderly in the southern city of Aden. Security officials say the attackers separated the nuns from the others and then shot them. They proceeded to handcuff the elderly people and randomly opened fire.

In total, 16 people were killed in the attack.

One nun survived by hiding in a refrigerator in a storeroom after hearing a Yemeni guard shouting “Run! Run!”

Two of the nuns were Rwandan, one was from Kenya, and the other was Indian.

Although there are no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack, the country of Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2015.

The war is being perpetrated by two opposing factions which claim to constitute the Yemeni government – Houthi forces controlling the capital of Sana’a who are aligned with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and forces loyal to the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi who are based in Aden.

Meanwhile, Islamic extremist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda have been exploiting the unrest and staging assaults such as the burning of a Catholic church last summer and vandalizing a Christian cemetery.

Pope Francis was said to have been “shocked and saddened” by the news of the deaths and prayed for the deceased and their families during yesterday’s Angelus address.

“These are the martyrs of today! [They are] not [on] the covers of newspapers, [they] are not the news, they that give their blood for the Church,” he told those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

“These people are victims of the attack of those who killed them and of indifference, of this globalisation of indifference, which doesn’t care.”

He added: “May Mother Teresa accompany her martyr daughters of charity in heaven, and intercede for peace and sacred respect for human life.”

According to the Catholic Herald, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, sent a telegram to the Missionaries of Charity expressing the Pope’s condolences.

“He sends the assurance of his prayers for the dead and his spiritual closeness to their families and to all affected from this act of senseless and diabolical violence,” the telegram read. “He prays that this pointless slaughter will awaken consciences, lead to a change of heart, and inspire all parties to lay down their arms and take up the path of dialogue.

“In the name of God, he calls upon all parties in the present conflict to renounce violence, and to renew their commitment to the people of Yemen, particularly those most in need, whom the Sisters and their helpers sought to serve. Upon everyone suffering from this violence, the Holy Father invokes God’s blessing, and in a special ways he extends to the Missionaries of Charity his prayerful sympathy and solidarity,” it said.

The Missionaries of Charity has grown to over 4,500 members since its inception in 1950 by Mother Teresa, a Catholic icon of Christian charity whose canonization is expected sometime this year.

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