Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped a Japanese engineer and a Yemeni driver near the capital Sanaa and are demanding the release of jailed relatives, the Japanese Embassy in Yemen and news media said Monday.
Negotiations are under way between the Yemeni government and the tribesmen, and a ransom is not being demanded, the embassy said, while declining to identify the Japanese victim citing possible effects on the negotiations.
The Yemeni government has located where the two are being held captive and both of them are safe, the embassy said, adding the engineer contacted the embassy on a cell phone.
The engineer was later confirmed to be a 63-year-old Tokyo resident and employee of a Tokyo-based consultancy by a source related to the firm. An embassy official said the male engineer has been engaged in an aid project to build schools in and around Sanaa for more than a year.
He was abducted on his way to the construction site for an elementary school in the town of Arhab, several tens of kilometers north of Sanaa, being built as part of the Japan International Cooperation Agency project, the official said.
Reuters news agency quoted a provincial official as saying, "Negotiations have started through mediators to seek the release of the man."
In May last year, armed tribesmen abducted two female Japanese tourists near Marib. The two were released unharmed the following day after local tribal leaders negotiated with their abductors.
Most kidnappings of foreigners in Yemen are by disgruntled tribesmen hoping to wangle concessions from the government, including the release of jailed relatives, but they usually treat their hostages well and release them unharmed, according to the Associated Press.
But three women from a party of nine kidnapped foreigners were found dead in June amid a recent rise in conflicts between the military and Shiite militia in the country's north.
The impoverished country in the south of the Arabian Peninsula has a weak central government and powerful tribes, as well as elements of al-Qaida lurking in the hinterlands, the AP said.
