U.S. Envoy in Africa Hurt in Carjack Bid

The American ambassador to this central African nation was slightly injured when a bandit hit him on the head with a pistol butt during an attempted carjacking, U.S. officials said Saturday.

Ambassador John Melvin Yates, 60, was driving home from an embassy event late Friday when a group of men approached his car and tried to steal it, an embassy official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Yates kept control of his car and escaped his attackers. He returned to his house with “very superficial” injuries, the official said. No one else was in the car, and no shots were fired at Yates, though one of the bandits apparently accidentally fired off one round. No one was believed to have been hit.

A U.S. State Department official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said one of the attackers hit Yates in the head with the butt of a pistol.

Yates “is resting comfortably at home and will be in his office at work Monday morning,” the embassy said in a brief statement.

There was no indication of a political motive behind the attack, the official in Washington said.

Police were searching for the gunmen.

Yaounde, the hilly capital of this poverty-ridden nation, has had a rapidly increasing crime rate in recent years, with carjackings and burglaries becoming commonplace.