GENEVA: A Red Cross employee’s kidnapping in Yemen underscored the “extremely fragile” situation in the country for humanitarian workers, with the coming days crucial for securing the hostage’s release, ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord said Wednesday.

The International Committee for the Red Cross said two people were taken by unidentified assailants on Tuesday in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, but that one was released unharmed. A Tunisian female staffer was being held hostage.

“The situation in Yemen is extremely fragile for an organization like the ICRC and the national Red Crescent,” Daccord told AFP in Geneva.

“When something like this happens, the kidnap of colleagues, this is always a shock. “We have to regroup immediately, try to understand what happened. This is exactly where we are right now.”

Daccord said that in this type of situation, “you most likely have two to three days” to try to connect with the possible perpetrators. If “it takes more than four to five days” before solid information emerges “then you are in a totally different dynamic, and we are also aware of that,” Daccord said.

Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda terrorists forced pro-government forces out of a strategic town in southern Yemen on Wednesday after clashes that left at least 15 people dead, officials said.

The terrorists briefly took control of Jaar in southern Abyan province, which a military source described as a key link between main southern city Aden and Mukalla, the Al-Qaeda-held capital of southeastern Hadramawt province.

A government official in the town told AFP that the militants withdrew hours later after "carrying out an operation" to kill Ali Al-Sayed, a commander of the pro-government "Popular Resistance" forces who have been fighting Iran-backed rebels. Sayed and 10 of his forces were killed in the clashes, the official said.

Eight civilians including two children were wounded in Saudi Arabia from Yemeni cross-border shelling, the Civil Defence said on Wednesday.

The attack hit two cars and a house on Tuesday evening in Jazan border district, it said.