SANAA, May 2 (Reuters) - A second Yemeni has died following an attack on Tuesday by suspected al Qaeda gunmen on a vehicle carrying employees of France's Total in an eastern province, a worker at the oil group said on Wednesday.
Total's deputy security officer Suhail al-Jawfi died early on Wednesday from wounds sustained during the attack, which also injured a Frenchman and killed a Yemeni soldier.
"He died this morning at 10 a.m. in Seiyun hospital. He had multiple bullet wounds in the legs and chest," said a Total employee.
The Frenchman had been flown to Sanaa and then on to France for medical treatment, the employee said.
A year of political upheaval that unseated former President Ali Abdullah Saleh has emboldened militants in Yemen where they have seized swathes of territory and carried out attacks.
Militants have repeatedly blown up a gas pipeline feeding Total's ${esc.dollar}4.5 bln Yemen LNG plant, the country's biggest industrial complex.
Yemen is a small crude oil producer but instability on its territory is a potential risk to global trade because of its location on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a crucial trading route linking Asia, Europe and the Americas. (Reporting by Tom Finn; Writing by Isabel Coles; editing by Sami Aboudi)
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