Monday, September 12, 2011

Yemeni website closes down after screening video of abducted French workers

By Mohammed al-Kibsi

A Yemeni website al-Masdar online was closed down after it had published a video screening three abducted French on Monday.
Through a video posted on almasdaronline, 3 French people issued an appeal, calling on the French community to intervene for releasing them.


In the clip of one minute and 49 seconds,  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB82OQUPq78), the 3 abductees stated their names, age, and role within the NGO.

“My Name is Pierre Perot, I’m 29 years-old and I was the project manager at Sayuon’ site”
In the clip the bearded man states in French that "we have been hostages for 102 days" and that he had been part of a project in Seyun.
In the brief video message, Pierre the main narrator explains that after 102 days of captivities they were still without any news from their government.


The three French hostages were abducted on May 28,  2011 from Sayuon town of Hadramout province in south east of Yemen.
The 2 women and man were working respectively as engineers and site manager for the French based NGO, Triangle Génération Humanitaire.

 A source at the Yemeni security had announced that they could locate the hid out of the kidnappers but then they did not give out any details. Later  al-Qaeda militants had announced kidnapping the trio, hoping to either blackmail the government into freeing members of their group or benefit financially from the abduction.
Some tribesmen said that al-Qaeda abductors demanded $12 million as a ransom to free the hostages.

Security apparatuses said  despite their warnings to the French workers, the aid workers were determined to continue working and traveling without a government escort, adding that they had written to Yemen security services asking them specifically to not accompany them in their field trips.
Bernard Valero, the Foreign Ministry’ spokesman, denied having had any knowledge of a terror group claiming the kidnapping of the nationals, but rather of tribesmen demanding a ransom.
And when asked about the tribesmen's claims Valero said: "We do not have this information.

"We have been engaged from the beginning in attempting to free our compatriots, and, in their interest, we must exercise the utmost discretion to preserve the effectiveness of our action."

The group demanded US$12 for the immediate release of the trio.  Patrick Verbruggen, the NGO Director said at the time that despite having been in touch with the kidnappers he had no information as to their “plan or demands”
Triangle Génération Humanitaire confirmed that the 3 seen on the video were indeed their kidnaped colleagues.

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