Kidnapped German girls freed
Source: Agencies |
May 19, 2010, Wednesday
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SAUDI intelligence forces have freed two German girls kidnapped nearly a year ago with their parents and brother in neighboring Yemen, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said yesterday, but the fate of the other captives remains unclear.
A relative of the kidnapped family acting as a spokesman said they were assuming the missing boy was dead.
"We are happy and relieved that both daughters are free. But we have to assume that the son is not longer alive," The Reverend Reinhard Poetschke told German news agency DAPD.
Yemen has blamed the abductions on the country's resurgent al-Qaida offshoot, though the group has issued no claim of responsibility.
Germany said the girls were in good health and would be flown home today.
Poetschke said the family would take care of the girls at an undisclosed location and hopes to protect them from media attention.
"The children now need peace to come to terms with what happened," he said. "It will already be difficult enough for them."
The German couple and their three young children went missing last June along with a British man in the northern Yemeni region of Saada. Two German women and a Korean woman who also disappeared with them were found dead soon after.
Yesterday, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said Saudi intelligence forces, after coordinating with Yemen, freed the two girls along the Yemeni border. The operation did not involve any fighting.
He gave no other details on the operation or on the fate of the other family members.
The girls' parents had worked in a state-run hospital in Saada, near the Saudi border, since 2003.
The family's names have not been released by German authorities, who say doing so could hamper efforts to secure their release. A German newspaper, Saechsische Zeitung, has said the couple were from the eastern German state of Saxony and reported the two girls are aged four and six.
Saudi Arabia increased its military presence along Yemen's borders late last year after anti-government Yemeni fighters killed two Saudi soldiers along the frontier. That drew Saudi Arabia's armed forces into the Yemeni government's off-and-on battle against a Shiite rebellion in the country's north.
Amid the widening security vacuum, Al-Qaida has steadily increased its presence in Yemen, especially after several of its leaders escaped from prison there in 2006.
A relative of the kidnapped family acting as a spokesman said they were assuming the missing boy was dead.
"We are happy and relieved that both daughters are free. But we have to assume that the son is not longer alive," The Reverend Reinhard Poetschke told German news agency DAPD.
Yemen has blamed the abductions on the country's resurgent al-Qaida offshoot, though the group has issued no claim of responsibility.
Germany said the girls were in good health and would be flown home today.
Poetschke said the family would take care of the girls at an undisclosed location and hopes to protect them from media attention.
"The children now need peace to come to terms with what happened," he said. "It will already be difficult enough for them."
The German couple and their three young children went missing last June along with a British man in the northern Yemeni region of Saada. Two German women and a Korean woman who also disappeared with them were found dead soon after.
Yesterday, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said Saudi intelligence forces, after coordinating with Yemen, freed the two girls along the Yemeni border. The operation did not involve any fighting.
He gave no other details on the operation or on the fate of the other family members.
The girls' parents had worked in a state-run hospital in Saada, near the Saudi border, since 2003.
The family's names have not been released by German authorities, who say doing so could hamper efforts to secure their release. A German newspaper, Saechsische Zeitung, has said the couple were from the eastern German state of Saxony and reported the two girls are aged four and six.
Saudi Arabia increased its military presence along Yemen's borders late last year after anti-government Yemeni fighters killed two Saudi soldiers along the frontier. That drew Saudi Arabia's armed forces into the Yemeni government's off-and-on battle against a Shiite rebellion in the country's north.
Amid the widening security vacuum, Al-Qaida has steadily increased its presence in Yemen, especially after several of its leaders escaped from prison there in 2006.
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