Kidnapped Japanese Released after Mediation

2008-05-08 10:52:48 [ Big Normal Small ]    　Comment

Two female Japanese tourists kidnapped in Yemen's major tourist attraction Marib have been released after tribal mediation, a local tribal chief said early Thursday.

"The two hostages have been released," Muaili tribe head Sheikh Mohammed Hassan bin Muaili, whose tribe the kidnappers belong to, told a foreign media.

A Yemeni security source also confirmed the release of the hostages.

The Japanese women were seized by unknown armed men on Wednesday while visiting a historic dam in the town of Marib, some 180 kilometers east of the capital of Sanaa, local officials told foreign media.

The armed men took the two women, members of a tourist group sightseeing near the old dam of Marib, in their vehicle and kicked away their Yemeni driver, a provincial government official was quoted as saying.

The kidnappers also shot at Yemeni soldiers accompanying the tourists and wounded one of them before they seized the two Japanese women and sped away in a car, said another local official.

Media reports said later that the two women were kidnapped by members of the Aziza tribe, who demanded that Yemeni officials release one of their tribesman who was in government custody.

Over the past decade, dozens of holidaymakers and foreigners have been kidnapped in Yemen by tribesmen demanding better schools, roads and services, or the release of prisoners.

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