Armed men kidnapped a German diplomat and his family touring the mountains of eastern Yemen on Wednesday and pressed the Yemeni government for the release of jailed members of their tribe, officials in both nations said.
The five missing Germans were identified by Germany Foreign Ministry as former Deputy Foreign Minister Juergen Chrobog, his wife and three children.
The vacationing family was traveling in a two-car convoy when a group of gunmen surrounded their vehicles, forced them into the kidnappers' cars and sped off, said government officials in Shabwa, the province where the incident occurred.
The manager of the tour company hired to take the Germans sightseeing said he had been in constant touch with the family since the abduction, using the mobile telephone of the tour guide who was with them.
Mohammed Abu Taleb, of the Abu Taleb Group, said Chrobog told him "the family was fine."
Chrobog said the family was taken as a bargaining chip for the kidnapping tribe to try to win the release of five of its members currently on trial, Abu Taleb said.
The kidnappers were said to belong to the al-Abdullah bin Dahha tribe, five of whose members were arrested two months ago after a clash with another tribe, al-Maraqsha.
The five men are currently on trial for killing two of al-Maraqsha and their tribe is demanding their immediate release, tribal sources said.
Tribesmen frequently kidnap tourists in an attempt to force concessions from the government in Yemen, a poor, mountainous nation on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula where state control in outlying areas is shaky.
Hostages are usually released unharmed, but several were killed in 2000 when security forces carried out a botched raid to free them.
Elders from other tribes began mediation with the bin Dahhas to try to win the Germans' release, Shabwa's deputy governor Nasser Baoum said.
A senior Interior Ministry official also arrived in Shabwa later on Wednesday to try to meet the kidnappers, signalling increased interest from the government, said Nasser Mohammed Bajabal, a parliament member from Shabwa.
Chrobog's family was touring Shabwa during a private visit to the country as the guest of the Yemeni Foreign Ministry.
The mountainous region on the edge of the Rub' al-Khali -- the vast desert of northern Yemen and southeast Saudi Arabia -- is frequented by tourists visiting Shabwa, the capital of the Kingdom of Hadhramout, dating to 1,000 BC, and the ruins of other ancient towns along incense trade routes that once ran through southern Arabia.
Chrobog, 65, was deputy foreign minister in then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government, which left office in November, and previously served as Germany's ambassador to the US.
In 2003, Chrobog headed a crisis team that negotiated the release of 14 tourists, including nine Germans, who were kidnapped in the Sahara desert and freed six months later by their captors in Mali. His wife, Magda Gohar-Chrobog, is a translator and the daughter of an Egyptian writer, Youssef Gohar.
Baoum said his government has agreed to a request from the mediating tribal elders for time to negotiate peacefully. He did not comment on the bin Dahha tribe's demand for the release of the arrested men, except to say that their trial had to proceed.
In Berlin, the German Foreign Ministry referred to Chrobog only as missing, not as kidnapped.
Tribesmen in the mountains of central Yemen kidnapped two Austrians a week ago as they visited a site known as the Queen of Sheba's throne.
In that case kidnappers also demanded the release of arrested members of their tribe. The Austrians were freed unharmed after the government told the tribesmen it would look into their complaints.
Two Swiss tourists were kidnapped in the same area as the Austrians a month earlier but released two days later.
They were grabbed by members of the al-Jizah tribe in an effort to win the release of one of the kidnappers' brother, who had been arrested on charges of stealing a car.
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