Four Germans kidnapped in Yemen more than three weeks ago were released by their captors yesterday, a day after a kidnapping of 16 other Western tourists ended in the deaths of four of the hostages.
A tribal chief who took part in the negotiations which led to the release of the four Germans said they were expected to leave the Maarib region, where they were seized by tribesmen on December 6th, yesterday evening for Sanaa.
In Bonn, the foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Martin Erdmann, said the ministry would try to bring the three women and a man back to Germany overnight.
The four German tourists were kidnapped by members of the Bani Dhabiane tribe, who held them hostage in return for public works to develop their part of the country. It was not clear if any of their demands had been met.
The German President, Mr Roman Herzog, wrote on Tuesday to Yemen's head of state, Mr Ali Abdallah Saleh, asking for the release of the hostages "without violence". His appeal followed the deaths of three Britons and an Australian in a kidnapping of 16 Western tourists by a group calling itself Islamic Jihad, the first hostage-taking in Yemen to end in a bloodbath.
An American woman and a British woman were wounded. They underwent surgery at the AlJumhuriya hospital in this southern city and were "out of danger", hospital officials said.
Three of the kidnappers were also killed in the shoot-out in the Abyan area north-east of Aden, along with a policeman, and three of the hostage-takers were captured, the Yemeni interior ministry said.
One of the survivors, Mr David Holmes, said in London yesterday that the four hostages who died were killed during the security forces' assault. His account contradicted that of the Yemeni authorities, who insisted they intervened only after the kidnappers started killing some of the hostages.
Mr Holmes (64) said a report "that the bandits had turned on the hostages was not the sequence of events". He said he was among a group of five hostages used as human shields by the kidnappers and that he saw Briton Ms Margaret Whitehouse and an Australian killed during the firefight with the security forces.
"We were utterly exposed. We were just sitting ducks," he added.
More than 150 foreigners have been abducted over the past five years in Yemen, but all had been treated as guests and released unhurt by tribal gangs seeking to win concessions from the authorities.