Nine foreigners were kidnapped, two still missing
Seven people thought to be among a group of foreigners kidnapped in recent days have been found dead, believed shot, in north Yemen, a government source told Al Arabiya Monday.
They were found near the Saada area, the source said. They were among a group of nine kidnapped last week in the Saada area that included seven Germans, a Briton and a Korean.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, is struggling with an on-off revolt in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and intensified al-Qaeda militancy.
The nine belong to an international relief group that has been working at a hospital in Saada province bordering Saudi Arabia for 35 years, a local official said on Sunday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping — the latest in a string of abductions of foreigners in one of the poorest countries in the world.Seoul confirmed that a South Korean, identified by her family name Eom, 34, had been missing since Thursday evening in Yemen when she joined members of the relief group for a walk.
Local sources said the group was a Christian Baptist organization that also has a medical team in the hospital at Jebla, south of Sanaa, where an Islamist militant killed three American doctors in December 2002.