United Nations. Five UN security personnel kidnapped in Yemen by al Qaeda militants 18 months ago have been released, the organization said on Friday.
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, celebrated the release and reiterated “that kidnapping is an inhumane and unjustifiable crime”, requesting that the perpetrators be held accountable,” said a spokesman for the organization.
The staff members – four from Yemen and one from Bangladesh – were in “very good health and good spirits, despite everything they have been through,” the senior UN official in Yemen, David Gressly, told reporters. .
“But they went through a very difficult period of 18 months of isolation,” he added.
UN personnel were kidnapped in Yemen’s southern Abyan region on February 11, 2022. Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) took advantage of the conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian group Houthi to strengthen their influence.
Gressly warned that AQAP is a “growing threat.”
Yemen has been in conflict since the Houthi group ousted the government from the capital Sanaa in late 2014. The Saudi-led military coalition intervened a year later to restore the government.
Peace initiatives have gained momentum since Riyadh and Tehran agreed in March to restore diplomatic ties broken in 2016.
