SANAA: Yemeni police found bodies of three foreigners — two German nurses and a South Korean teacher — yesterday, three days after nine foreigners, including seven Germans and a Briton, were abducted in northwestern Yemen, a provincial official said.
Deputy Governor of the northeastern province of Saada Muhammad Al-Emad told reporters that two German children were found alive.
He said the two girls were found near the location where the three slain women were found in Akwan district of the Wadi Nushur area east of Saada. He said the women were shot and stabbed. Wadi Nushur is close to Al-Jawf province, where the Al-Qaeda terrorist network has a presence.
The hostages, a German health appliances technician, his wife and their three children and two German women volunteers as well as a British engineer and a woman teacher from South Korea were abducted Friday. The German technician works for the state-run Al-Jumhori hospital in Saada, while the others were visiting.
Security sources said the nine people went missing during an excursion in the Gharaz district south of Saada, some 240 km northwest of Sanaa.
Security officials in Sanaa told Arab News that the British engineer, the German technician, his wife and one of their children were still alive late yesterday, but it was not clear whether they were still in the hands of the kidnappers.
No tribal or political group made any claim of responsibility for the abduction, but the official Saba news agency reported Sunday that Shiite rebels abducted the group. It quoted an unnamed provincial official in Saada as accusing “outlaws” belonging to a rebel group of abducting the foreigners.
The rebels, led by Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, denied their involvement in the abduction, saying in a statement that the accusation was “baseless and fabricated.”
