At least 12 civilians have been killed in a blast near the airport of Aden, the Yemeni government’s interim capital, a senior security official told AFP.

There were also serious injuries, said the official, adding that the cause of the blast on Saturday was unknown. Another security official confirmed the death toll.

The explosion came almost three weeks after six people were killed in a car bomb attack that targeted Aden’s governor, who survived.

AFP footage on Saturday showed people pulling out a body from a vehicle that had been completely destroyed, as firefighters put out flames nearby.

The internationally recognised government relocated to Aden from the capital Sana’a in 2014, forced out by the Houthis, who are fighting Saudi-backed Yemeni government loyalists.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for Saturday’s blast, which is the deadliest in the area since December last year, when an attack targeting cabinet members ripped through Aden’s airport.

At least 26 people, including three members of the International Committee of the Red Cross, were killed and scores were wounded when explosions rocked the airport as ministers disembarked from an aircraft. All cabinet members were reported to be unharmed, in what some ministers said was a Houthi attack.

Also on Saturday, three children were killed and three more were critically wounded in a neighbourhood of Yemen’s third city, Taiz, by what state media said was rebel mortar fire.