Two young German girls held hostage for nearly a year in Yemen have been rescued and taken to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Riyadh said on Tuesday, but a family spokesman said their toddler brother was likely dead. Separately, Yemeni and Chinese officials said kidnappers released two Chinese oil workers abducted on Sunday in Yemen.
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."
Yemeni tribal sources reported Saudi cross-border raids, backed by helicopters, in border villages. But the Saudi interior ministry spokesman, Mansour al-Turki, said the operation was done in co-ordination with Yemen and the girls had been freed without using force.
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. "We received good news and bad news," Reinhard Poetschke, the mother's brother, was quoted telling the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper.
"Both daughters are free but the son is probably no longer alive. We don't know anything about the fate of the parents. Now we're making preparations for the girls' return home," he said. The two abducted Chinese oil workers arrived safely at the capital of the eastern province of Shabwa after being released by their kidnappers, Xinhua news agency quoted the Chinese embassy in Yemen as saying.