A retired Newfoundland teacher was among 10 people killed in a deadly attack in a medieval castle in the city of Karak in Jordan.
Canada’s global affairs spokesman, John Babcock, told The Associated Press the dead woman was Linda Vatcher, 62. Babcock said her son Chris was also injured.
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Several armed men barricaded themselves inside the castle for hours, hemmed in by special forces soldiers. At least 34 people, including two foreign nationals, were wounded in the day’s violence, which was one of the bloodiest attacks in Jordan in recent memory.
The federal government said in an emailed statement Sunday afternoon that Canadian officials were working with local authorities to gather information and were providing consular assistance to Canadians.
Barb Rhymes, a cousin of Vatcher’s, said the retired elementary teacher from Burgeo, Newfoundland had been visiting her son in Jordan where he works. Rhymes said Vatcher was a widow and a mother of two adult sons.
“She was very friendly, outgoing. She was nice to everyone. A friend to all,” Rhymes said from Burgeo, a remote town of 1,400 people on Canada’s East Coast. “It’s devastating. It has hit the town hard. My mind is not there right now. She was a beautiful person.”
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The chain of events began when a police patrol received reports of a house fire in the town of Qatraneh in the Karak district, said a statement by Jordan’s Public Security Directorate.
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The officers responding to the call came under fire from inside the house, the statement said. Two policemen were wounded and the assailants fled in a car, it said.
In another attack, gunmen fired on a security patrol in Karak, causing no injuries, the statement said.
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Armed men also opened fire on a police station in Karak Castle, a Crusader fort, wounding members of the security forces. The statement said five or six gunmen were believed to be holed up inside the castle.
In all, seven members of the security forces, two local civilians and the tourist from Canada were killed, security officials said. Twenty-seven people were wounded.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks in and near the central town of Karak, about 140 kilometres south of the capital, Amman.
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Jordan faces homegrown extremism, with hundreds of Jordanians fighting alongside other Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and several thousand more supporting the extremist group in the kingdom. Jordan is a key U.S. ally, and a member of a U.S.-led military coalition fighting IS.
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Over the past year, gunmen have carried out several attacks on members of the Jordanian security forces and foreign trainers. Earlier this year, Jordanian security forces engaged in a deadly shootout with suspected IS sympathizers in a northern Jordanian town.
In the most recent incident, three U.S. military members were killed in a shooting outside an air base in southern Jordan in November. The three were in Jordan on a training mission, and came under fire while driving into the base.
–– With files from the Associated Press