Indian Red Cross staff kidnapped in Yemen released

An Indian employee of the International Red Cross in southern Yemen was today kidnapped along with a local worker by armed tribesmen but were released within hours.
"The incident has been resolved. The Indian worker and the Yemini national have been released and are now back with us," Dibeh Fakhr, Middle East spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told PTI by telephone from Geneva.
She said the incident happened in the morning and both were released hours after the incident.
She refused to identify the Indian worker but said both were on their way to attend a seminar in a hospital in Jaar (in Abyan province) when they were kidnapped.

Media reports quoting sources from the Popular Resistance Committees, local militias which backed the army in chasing al-Qaeda militants out of Abyan last year, said the militia's deputy chief, Ali al-Sayed, was leading the negotiations.
The reports said the kidnappers belong to the Marakisha tribe whose gunmen kidnapped two Egyptian technicians working at a cement factory in Abyan on Monday.

The tribesmen had then demanded the release of a member of their tribe jailed seven years ago on murder charges.
Hundreds of people have been abducted in Yemen over the past 15 years, almost all of who have been freed unharmed, reports said.

Most kidnappings of foreigners are done by members of the country's powerful tribes who use them for bargaining in disputes with the central government.