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SANAA : Gunmen have kidnapped a Japanese engineer near the Yemeni capital and want to exchange him for an arrested fellow tribesman, a local official said on Monday.
The official in Arhab, a region northeast of Sanaa, told AFP that the Japanese man was abducted on Sunday while on his way to a village in the area to supervise the construction of a school.
The kidnapped engineer was identified only as a member of a Japanese aid agency operating in Yemen, but the Japanese embassy in Sanaa refused to comment on the report.
The official, who declined to be named, said the gunmen carried out the abduction in a bid to force Yemeni authorities to release a member of their tribe detained by police for an unspecified reason.
Yemeni tribes habitually kidnap foreigners to try to put pressure on local authorities. More than 200 foreigners have been seized during the past 15 years, with most being freed unharmed.
But five Germans and a Briton who were taken captive in June in the north of the country are still missing with no word on their fate.
They were among nine people seized in the northern Saada region, the stronghold of Shiite rebels led by Abdel Malek al-Huthi. The three others in the group -- two Germans and a South Korean -- were killed.
- AFP /ls
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