Armed Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped three people – one Swiss – working for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the southern province of Abyan, according to a Yemeni security source.
The aid workers were taken on Monday from a vehicle in the city of Jaar where he was travelling with his co-workers and there had been no demands from the tribesmen, the security source said.
ICRC spokeswoman Dibeh Fakhr confirmed that two international staff and a locally hired employee had been taken in the vicinity of Jaar.
She said the three were alive and «hopefully unharmed», adding that the organisation was negotiating for their release. She says she assumes the kidnappers might be the same group involved in a similar incident last week.
But she declined to give more information, saying it could endanger the negotiations and put lives at risk.
Kidnappings of Westerners in Yemen are mostly carried out by al-Qaeda militants or tribesmen.
No go
Yemen’s president warned last week that the al-Qaeda branch in the country was expanding and using assassinations and abductions of foreigners as a way to challenge the central authority.
Lawlessness in the Arabian Peninsula state has alarmed its neighbour and top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States, which increasingly views Yemen as a front line in its struggle against al Qaeda.
The Swiss foreign ministry website advises against visiting or staying in Yemen. It also encourages Swiss nationals to leave the country for the time being and to take all necessary precautions.
A Swiss woman held for nearly a year in Yemen was freed by her kidnappers and flown to Doha in February following mediation by Qatar. Armed tribesmen had kidnapped the teacher in the western Yemeni city of Hudaida in March 2012 to press the Sanaa government to free jailed relatives, a Yemeni official said.