CAIRO/SANAA: Airstrikes by Arab coalition forces hit oil facilities in Yemen Thursday, killing at least nine people, workers and medics said, and four Yemeni government soldiers died in a suspected militant attack.

The air attack on a Red Sea facility at Ras Isa port, used to load tanker trucks with refined products for domestic distribution, wounded at least 30 other people, medical sources said.

“The bodies were either burned or mutilated, most of the wounded suffering burns from the burning fuel,” one source told Reuters in a text message.

Photos showed fire trucks trying to put out flames rising from fuel trucks as black smoke covered the area.

Ras Isa is Yemen’s main oil export terminal but no shipments have been leaving since the coalition of Arab states launched a military campaign in March last year.

Oil workers said the oil export facilities in the area and a nearby sugar refinery were not affected by Thursday’s attack.

In eastern Yemen, four Yemeni government soldiers were killed and four wounded in a bomb attack on their vehicle near a border post between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, a government official said.

The official said Al-Qaeda militants, who are known to operate in the area, were suspected of carrying out the attack at Al-Wadia.

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network says it has lost contact with one of its chief correspondents who they suspect has been kidnapped in the city of Taiz.

The news network said Thursday that Hamdi al-Bukari, who had been covering the intense Taiz fighting that started in April, went missing Monday night.

It called for the release of al-Bukari, and said it held the kidnappers responsible for his safety. It did not name the group behind his alleged abduction.