Briton 'kidnapped' in Yemen

The Foreign Office is looking into reports today that a Briton was among nine people kidnapped in North Yemen.

According to AFP news agency, a British engineer, seven Germans and a South Korean have been seized by Shiite rebels in the Middle Eastern country.

The German group comprises a couple, three children and two women nurses, while the South Korean is a female teacher, it is claimed.

The nine hostages belong to an international organisation that has been working at a hospital in the Saada region for the past 35 years, a local official told the agency.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are investigating these reports."

The Yemeni interior ministry said the group were kidnapped on Friday by a Shiite rebel group led by Abdel Malak al-Hawthi, while on a picnic in northern Sada province.

Local Yemenis said the group included a German doctor, his wife and five children, as well as a Briton and his wife.

The state news agency said the foreigners worked in a hospital in Sada.

The rebels rose up against the government in the predominantly Sunni Yemen in 2004. They reached a fragile truce with the government last year.