Two young German girls who were held hostage for almost a year in the mountains of Yemen were due home yesterday following a dramatic rescue by Saudi special forces.
Lydia Henschel, 3, and Anna, 5, were delivered into the care of authorities in neighboring Saudi Arabia yesterday, after an 11-month ordeal in the rugged terrain of north Yemen. They were allegedly held by Shiite Houthi rebels with possible links to al-Qaeda.
The fate of the girls’ parents, Johannes and Sabine, both 36, who worked as Christian missionaries, and their baby brother, Simon, remains unknown.
“The children need peace and quiet, not flashbulbs, in order to be able to work through what has happened,” said the girls’ uncle, Reinhard Potschke, who was told of the rescue by the German foreign ministry on Monday. “For them and us the feelings of joy and mourning are mixed.”
Potschke, a vicar, said the family was prepared for the worst. “We have to expect that Simon is probably not alive anymore,” he said. German officials refused to confirm numerous reports that the parents and their two-year-old son were dead.
Mansour al-Turki, the Saudi interior ministry’s spokesman for security affairs, told al-Arabiya TV that Monday’s operation to rescue the girls had been carried out with Yemeni security forces.
There were reports from Yemen that Saudi special forces had crossed the border and military helicopters were flying over the area. “We got information and we thought the two girls were close,” Turki said. “This was an intelligence operation. We did not actually have any security forces inside Yemen. It was a humanitarian effort.”
The rescue took place in the Shada district of Saada province in northwest Yemen, where Saudi forces intervened on the side of the Sana’a government during the recent conflict with Houthi rebels.
Johannes Henschel, a mechanical engineer and Arab speaker and Sabine, a nurse, sold their belongings seven years ago and left their home in the village of Lauske in the state of Saxony for Yemen as part of a long-held dream. They worked at the Protestant al-Jumhuri state hospital in Yemen, employed by Worldwide Services, a Christian charity based in the Netherlands. They had planned to return to Germany this year for Anna to start school.
Since their arrival, however, civil unrest has broken out in parts of the country, which has seen the army and rebels engaged in increasingly fierce battles, particularly in north Yemen where the Henschels were stationed.
Their dream became a nightmare when they were kidnapped while on a picnic in Saada in June last year.
Two German bible school students, a Korean woman and a British engineer were also taken. The students and the Korean woman were found dead shortly after the kidnapping, but there was no sign of the Briton or the Henschels.
At the end of last year a video was released showing the three children — including Simon, looking very weak — but none of the adults.
Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said the government was “relieved that the Saudi Arabian security forces were successful in freeing two of the five of our compatriots who were abducted in Yemen”. He said the two girls were being looked after by Saudi authorities.
“Considering the circumstances they are doing well,” he said.
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