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French national Isabelle Prime freed after abduction in Yemen Yemen: abducted French aid worker freed
(about 14 hours later)
A French woman who was abducted in Yemen in February has been freed, François Hollande’s office said. A French aid worker who was abducted in Yemen in February has been freed and will be back home on Friday, President François Hollande’s office has said.
“Our compatriot Isabelle Prime has been freed tonight,” the French president’s office said in a statement. It added that she would return to France in the coming hours but did not provide details on her liberation. Isabelle Prime and her translator Shereen Makawi were abducted by gunmen in the capital Sana’a on 24 February while on their way to work. Yemeni tribal sources said in March Prime would be released, but only Makawi was freed at the time.
Prime and her Yemeni translator Shereen Makawi were abducted by gunmen in the capital, Sana’a, on 24 February while the pair were on their way to work. Yemeni tribal sources said in March that Prime would be released, but only Makawi was freed at the time. “Our compatriot Isabelle Prime has been freed tonight,” the Hollande statement said. “The president wishes to thank all those who helped achieve this outcome, and in particular Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, the Sultan of Oman.”
In recent years tribesmen have taken foreigners hostage to press the government to provide them with services or to free jailed relatives. Neighbouring Oman has often played a mediating role in hostage releases and regional diplomacy.
Yemen is also home to one of the most active branches of al-Qaida, to which tribal kidnappers have reportedly often sold their kidnapped victims. Authorities there helped locate Prime and bring her to the Gulf Arab sultanate at dawn, official news agency ONA reported, citing an unnamed official at the Omani foreign ministry.
In June, France authenticated a video that showed Prime, a consultant for Yemen’s Social Fund for Development, crouching on sand and in distress. Dressed in black, she made her appeal to Hollande and his Yemeni counterpart, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in English. Asked whether a ransom had been paid, a French official said France never gave details on either the detention or release of hostages.
“Please bring me to France fast because I’m really, really tired,” she had said in the video. “I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand.” “I spoke to her by telephone this morning, she is doing as well as can be expected,” French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement. “The release of Isabelle Prime shows yet again that France does not abandon its own.”
The video first appeared on YouTube on 4 May. Kidnappings of westerners occur sporadically in Yemen, mostly carried out by al-Qaida militants and tribesmen.
In recent years, tribesmen in Yemen have taken foreigners hostage to press the government to provide them with services or to free jailed relatives.
Yemen is also home to one of the most active branches of al-Qaida, to which tribal kidnappers have often sold their victims, according to Yemeni security officials.
In June, France authenticated a video that appeared on YouTube in May showing Prime making an appeal in English to Hollande and the Yemeni president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
“Please bring me to France fast because I’m really, really tired,” she said in the video, in which she was seen crouching on sand and in distress. “I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand.”
Since Prime’s abduction, the situation in Yemen has become more complex. Hadi fled into exile in March after Iranian-allied Houthi fighters, who seized the capital last September, advanced towards his southern stronghold in Aden.
Yemen’s Arab neighbours have intervened to halt the advance of the Houthis, who are Shia Muslims from the north.
The Houthis have been pounded with air strikes for more than four months, and the raids and other warfare have killed more than 4,000 people. Disease, hunger and water shortages have also contributed to a humanitarian crisis.
• Another version of this article was published earlier on 7 August 2015. It was replaced with this version when further information was released.