Another Foreigner Kidnapping in Yemen
The lack of judicial processes leads tribes to take matters in their own hands. The Dutch are longtime donors to Yemen. They were kidnapped driving in the capital.
Sana’a, Yemen – Yemeni tribesmen holding a Dutch couple hostage said on Wednesday they would release them if two provincial police chiefs are put on trial over a shootout last year in which four fellow clansmen were hurt, a municipal official said.
Jamil Shuraih, the secretary-general of the Bani-Dhabian district, where the Dutch hostages are being held, said the abductors also demanded financial compensation for injuries suffered by their relatives during the gunfight.
Shuraih told the German Press Agency dpa that the clash took place between members of the Al Seraj clan and police forces four months ago at a checkpoint in Marib province, around 170 kilometres north-east of Sana’a.
‘We began contacts with the kidnappers, and they insisted that the police superintendent of Marib and the commander of central security forces in the province stand trial,’ Shuraih said.
He said the kidnappers had accused the two officials of ordering an attack on their fellow men.
Six armed tribesmen intercepted the Dutch man and his wife as they were driving in a southern Sana’a suburb on Tuesday, and took them at gunpoint to a mountainous area around 80 kilometres east of the capital city.
Shuraih said the hostages were Dutch man, who works as an expert at a water project funded by the Dutch government in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz, and his wife.
The kidnapping is the third involving foreigners in Yemen this year.
On January 18, tribesmen abducted a German oil expert in the south-eastern Yemeni province of Shabwa and released him two days later. The kidnappers demanded the release of a jailed fellow tribesman.
On January 3, tribesmen seeking the release of a jailed fellow clansman took a South African tourist and her two sons hostage for one day in the southern province of Abyan, but later released them unharmed.
Read more: “Abductors of Dutch couple in Yemen demand trial of police officials” – M&C
ChoSun A Dutch couple taken hostage by tribesmen in Yemen on Tuesday are reportedly unharmed and being treated well by their captors. One of the abductees, who spoke to AP via cell phone from an undisclosed location, said they were taken at gunpoint by armed men while driving their car in the capital city of Sanaa.
A report indicates the kidnappers are demanding the release of relatives from jail in exchange for the Dutch couple’s freedom. The relatives are said to be in police custody for their previous involvement in the abduction of foreign tourists.Yemeni tribes have frequently kidnapped foreigners in the past to use them as a bargaining chip in feuds with the government.
