2 GERMAN GIRLS HELD IN YEMEN RESCUED

Picture of missing Germans

RIYADH, May 18 — Saudi Arabia’s security forces have rescued two young German girls held hostage for nearly a year in neighbouring Yemen, Riyadh said today, but a family spokesman said their toddler brother was likely dead.
The girls, reported to be between 3 and 6 years old, were members of a German family of five who have been held by kidnappers the Yemeni government believes have links to al Qaeda. The pair were said to be in a good condition.

• “Saudi Arabia has retrieved two German children kidnapped in Yemen,” a Saudi interior ministry spokesman said. “The two children were in a border area between the two countries.”
• The German family was among a group of nine foreigners taken hostage in northern Yemen in June, of which three women — two Germans and a South Korean — were later found dead. Three German family members and a Briton remain missing.
• The German foreign minister said the rescued girls were in relatively good health and would return home on Wednesday, but he remained concerned about the remaining German hostages.
• “Our efforts are continuing undiminished to shed light on the whereabouts of the remaining hostages. Their fate is causing us great concern. We are hoping for a happy outcome for them too,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said.
• Kidnappings of foreigners and Yemenis are common in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, where hostages are used by disgruntled tribesmen to press demands on authorities.
• Most hostages have been freed unharmed, but in 2000 a Norwegian diplomat was killed in crossfire and in 1998 four Westerners were killed during a botched army attempt to free them from Islamist militants who had seized 16 tourists.

Source: Reuters