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Germany says Yemen hostages freed and in UN hands

Posted on: Fri February 03, 2012

SANA: The German foreign ministry said four foreign aid workers kidnapped in Yemen have been released and handed over to United Nations offices in Sanaa.

It welcomed the release of the Colombian, German, Iraqi and Palestinian workers taken hostage on Tuesday northwest of Sanaa where they worked at the UN\'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Yemeni Electricity Minister Saleh Sumai told AFP on Tuesday the two women and two men as well as their two local drivers had been freed in Wadi Ahjar, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Sanaa, the same area where they were abducted.

The group has since been placed under the protection of UN offices in the capital, an official at the German foreign ministry told AFP.

In Bogota, Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin also confirmed the release of the aid workers, saying they were freed after negotiations with the captors, in which the UN took part.

The freed Colombian, identified as Omar Gonzalez, "spoke with the ambassador (from Colombia to the United Arab Emirates), thanked him, told him that he was fine and that he was about to leave" for Sanaa, Holguin told journalists.

Gonzalez "is fine, in very good condition, very calm" and he will continue working with the United Nations, Holguin said before talks with her Ecuadoran counterpart Ricardo Patino in the southwestern Colombian city of Cali.

She said she did not know whether the Yemeni government met the captors\' demand of freeing a man jailed in Sanaa, which was their original condition for freeing the hostages.

Yemen\'s powerful tribes often kidnap foreigners to use as bargaining chips with the authorities. More than 200 foreigners have been abducted over the past 15 years. Almost all were later freed unharmed.

Courtesy : Samaa News