Yemen: Kidnappers free two hostages

Kidnappers today freed two Austrian hostages three days after seizing them in northern Yemen, the country’s official news agency said.

The Austrian tourists, a man and a woman, were released in good health and were expected to return to the Yemeni capital, San’a, later, the Saba agency said quoting an Interior Ministry official.

The agency did not immediately carry a report on the release but gave the information to journalists.

An witness in the northern province of Maarib told The Associated Press that he had seen the Austrians after their release.

The two were kidnapped on Wednesday while visiting a site in Maarib. Yemeni government officials had said tribal gunmen kidnapped the pair and probably took them to an area called Abeda.

The names of the hostages were not published, but the Austrian Foreign Ministry said the captives were a man and a woman, one from Vienna and the other from the southern province of Styria.

Yemen’s ambassador to Vienna, Ali Hameed Sharaf, had said on Thursday he expected the Austrians to be released soon.

Tribesmen kidnap Westerners from time to time in Yemen, often to try to force concessions from the government.

The hostages are usually released unharmed, but several were killed in 2000 when security forces carried out a botched raid to free them.