Local Editor
Unidentified gunmen kidnapped a Tunisian woman working for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen as she was leaving home for work in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, the ICRC and local officials said.
They identified the woman as Nouran Hawas and said she was in charge of an ICRC humanitarian protection program in the Swiss-based humanitarian agency’s Sanaa office.
Rima Kamal, the ICRC’s Yemen spokeswoman, said the gunmen kidnapped Hawas and a Yemeni man when they intercepted their ICRC vehicle in the morning. The man was released after several hours but Hawas was still being held.
"At this point we don’t know who is behind the abduction, what are the motives, but we are trying to appeal to those [responsible] to release our colleague," Kamal told Reuters.
"This incidence comes on top of many security incidents we have had, and it is deplorable," she said, adding that the identity of the kidnappers was not known.
On Sept. 2, two ICRC employees were shot dead in the northern province of Amran by an unknown attacker. The two were Yemeni nationals and were returning from an aid project in the far northern province of Sa’ada, an ICRC official said then.
And on Aug. 25, gunmen raided the ICRC office in the Yemeni port city of Aden, forcing the agency to temporarily suspend its activities there.
The ICRC has been present in Yemen for more than fifty years working to assist people affected by the armed conflict. This assistance includes supplying urgently needed medicines to hospitals; visiting prisoners, rehabilitating water and electricity networks; and distributing food and water to people in the worst-affected areas.
More than two million Yemenis have benefited from these services since the conflict started.
Sources: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
