Intense Search for Missing Hostages in Yemen

Yemeni police and military forces continued an intense search for 6 medical aid workers kidnapped over the weekend in an attack that left 3 members of their group dead. Via CNN:

(CNN) -- Reward money has climbed to $275,000 for information in the kidnapping of nine foreigners in Yemen -- three of whom have been found dead -- as troops search for the remaining six hostages, Yemeni officials said.

The Ministry of Interior offered a $250,000 reward, in addition to the $25,000 reward offered by the governor of Saada City -- both aimed at information leading to the arrest of the kidnappers -- according to the Yemeni Embassy in Washington.

Special forces and anti-terrorism teams with helicopters were sweeping the Saada area for the hostages, the embassy said Tuesday.

"Furthermore, Ministry of Interior have mobilized a massive police force, which in cooperation with the army, are working around the clock in the area until the perpetrators of this hideous crime are put to justice," a news release from the embassy said.

The bodies of a South Korean teacher and two German nurses, all in their 20s, arrived in Sana'a by helicopter, accompanied by Yemen's deputy minister of health, according to the release. News of their deaths did not surface until Monday. The nurses worked for a hospital in Saada run by the Dutch charity World Wide Services Foundation, according to Yemen's state-run SABA news agency.

Five Germans -- including three children -- and a Briton are still missing.

The group was part of a Baptist medical mission serving the Saada region of Yemen which has been embroiled in a civil war for several years. The government is blaming Houthi rebels for the abductions, but others believe that an Al Qaeda affiliated group is more likely to be responsible.

Please continue to pray for the protection and rescue of the missing hostages, and for the comfort and consolation of the families of the deceased.

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Update on Aid Worker Abduction in Yemen
Aid Workers Kidnapped, Murdered in Yemen

Update on Aid Worker Abduction in Yemen

Yesterday we reported that 7 of the 9 foreign aid workers kidnapped in Yemen had been murdered, probably by an Al Qaeda affiliated group. Today, however, British authorities are saying that 3 persons are confirmed dead and that the others are still considered missing. Via Times Online:

A reward of £15,000 has been offered for information leading to the capture of kidnappers who killed three foreign aid workers and are believed to be holding a British engineer and three children in the Yemen.

The bodies of three women, two Germans nurses and a South Korean aid worker, were discovered by shepherds in the mountainous region of the north of the country.

They were part of a group of nine people who had gone for a day out in the Saada province on Friday. Fears are now growing for the remaining six people, a German doctor, his wife and three children and the Briton, who are still missing.

A search has been launched to try to find the group, many of whom worked at a local hospital.

The Yemeni authorities offered a reward of five million rials (£15,000) for the kidnappers’ capture in a broadcast on the state news agency Saba.

A British Foreign & Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said that it was “deeply concerned” about reports of bodies, said to have been mutilated, being found. Its staff in the area are trying to establish the details surrounding the missing Briton.

Jane Novak of Armies of Liberation has much more information on this abduction, including the identities of the members of the medical mission group:

Source: Yemen Post, I put an asterick next to the three poor souls whose bodies were found stabbed and shot.

The family:
Johannes H. (36)
Sabine H. (36)
their kids Lydia (4), Anna (3) and Simon (1)

The nurses:
Anita G. (24)*
Rita S. (26)*
Anthony S. (british)
Young-Sun Ium (korean)*

She also speculates that the hostages may have been moved to Saudi Arabia through a series of caves used by Al Qaeda for smuggling arms and other supplies.

Please continue to pray for the protection and rescue of these hostages if they are indeed still alive, as we fervently hope they are. More updates as they become available.

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Aid Workers Kidnapped, Murdered in Yemen

Aid Workers Kidnapped, Murdered in Yemen

Terrible news out of Yemen where a group of foreign aid workers was kidnapped over the weekend and have now been found murdered. Via CNN:

(CNN) -- Seven foreign workers seized by militants in Yemen reportedly have been killed, according to the Yemen Post newspaper.

The workers were among a group of nine abducted that included seven Germans, a Briton and a South Korean. Germany's Foreign Ministry said it is in close contact with the German Embassy in Yemen but couldn't confirm any details at this stage.

The German hostages included three children, two nurses, an engineer and his wife, according to Yemen's state-run SABA news agency. All nine hostages worked at a hospital in the volatile Yemeni province of Saada, where they were abducted Sunday.

Yemen's Ministry of Interior told the Yemen Post that the bodies of seven hostages were found Monday in the streets of Shukwan, a neighborhood in Saada, a day after Houthi rebels seized them, the newspaper's editor in chief, Hakim Al-Masmari, told CNN.

More details are available from AFP, including the fact that the group was part of a Baptist mission group working at a hospital in the town of Jebla.

SANAA (AFP) — A British engineer was feared to be among seven foreign hostages, one of them a child, who were found murdered in northern Yemen on Monday, security officials said.

"We have found the corpses of seven people who were kidnapped," a local security official said. "They were killed."

Two of the three children captured with the group were reportedly found alive.

The bodies were found by the son of a tribal leader in Noshour, east of the volatile Saada mountainous area of northern Yemen where the nine were abducted, the official said.

In London, the Foreign Office confirmed it was looking into reports a Briton was among the victims.

The Yemeni authorities had accused Shiite Zaidi rebels in Saada of seizing seven Germans, a British engineer and a South Korean woman teacher. The rebels denied the charge.

The nine -- among them three German children and two women nurses -- belong to an international relief group that has been working at a hospital in Saada province bordering Saudi Arabia for 35 years, a local official said on Sunday.

Yemeni authorities are blaming Houthi rebels for the kidnappings and murders, but Yemen expert Jane Novak says this is doubtful and that al Wahishi (Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula) is more likely to be responsible (via The Jawa Report):

The rebels say it occurred next the headquarters of the Political Security (the secret police) in central Sa'ada. However like every other group in Yemen, when news hits the western media, the rebels were unable to put out a statement in English. Ergo, yet more bad google translation:

Houthi deny that any of the sons of Saada relationship is responsible for the kidnapping of German. Power is the power (the government) bears full responsibility for their fate. The area where it was said that they had kidnapped them (Graz) is next to the Political Security in the heart of the city of Saada. We emphasize that the charge for us is null and false accusation and slander is a matter of political vindictiveness, which is evidence of the bankruptcy (of the regime).

Of course the Reuters report is by Mohammed Saddam, Yemeni President Saleh's personal translator, and the report that Shiite rebels kidnapped them came from the military. The Saada War has raged since 2004. The rebels have never kidnapped anyone or targeted civilians in that time (unlike the Yemeni government which bombed the hell out of quite a few cities and kidnapped hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians including children.)

Beside government kidnapping, tribal kidnapping is also common in Yemen, usually the demand is the release of relatives held as hostages by the government. And normally when tribesmen kidnap foreigners, they call it in, the hostages call home, everybody drinks tea and waits. No one gets hurt, and sooner or later, the tribal relatives are freed and so are the western hostages.

A terrible situation all around. Our deepest condolences to the families of the murdered aid workers who sacrificed not only their time and effort but their very lives out of love for their fellow man. Prayers that the guilty will be brought to justice and that this will not be used as an excuse to persecute the innocent.