Tourists kidnapped in Yemen

In most cases the kidnappings are resolved and hostages freed.

In December, three Germans – an aid worker and her visiting mother and father – were freed after being held for less than a week by tribesmen, who received a ransom fee from the Yemen government of about $100,000.

Yemen is the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula and the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda.