German envoy escapes Yemen kidnap attempt, but bodyguard killed
Germany's ambassador to Yemen escaped a kidnapping attempt yesterday in the capital Sanaa during which her bodyguard was killed, a diplomatic source said.
Germany's ambassador to Yemen escaped a kidnapping attempt yesterday in the capital Sanaa during which her bodyguard was killed, a diplomatic source said.
"There was an attempt to kidnap Ambassador Carola Muller-Holtkemper as she came out of a store in Hada," a southern Sanaa district where foreign embassies are located, the source said.
"The ambassador escaped but her bodyguard was killed as he tried to resist the attackers who managed to flee," added the source.
Medics in Sanaa said the corpse of the bodyguard was taken to the Saudi-German hospital in the capital.
Witnesses had said earlier that gunmen in a vehicle opened fire on a German citizen, killing him as he left a shop in Hada.
Diplomatic sources also said that gunmen kidnapped a Sierra Leone citizen who works for the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) yesterday.
The man was seized at gunpoint from a UN vehicle in northern Sanaa, the sources said, adding that his Yemeni the driver was not kidnapped.
Foreigners are frequently attacked or kidnapped in Yemen, home to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is viewed by the United States as the network's deadliest franchise.
Yesterday's incident was the first reported attempt to kidnap an ambassador, however.
AQAP militants are still holding Saudi Arabia's deputy consul in Aden, Abdullah al-Khalidi, whom they seized in March last year.
They are demanding the release of female Al-Qaeda-linked prisoners held in Saudi Arabia in return for his release.
The extremists are also holding Nour-Ahmad Nikbakht, identified by Tehran as an administrative staff member of the Iranian embassy in Yemen, abducted on July 21.
Kidnappings are often carried out by tribesmen, who use their hostages as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government and usually free them unharmed after tribal mediation.
