Franco-Tunisian woman hostage in Yemen freed and taken to Oman

A Franco-Tunisian Red Cross staffer kidnapped in Yemen almost a year ago was freed on Monday and taken to Muscat, the Omani foreign ministry said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen confirmed in a tweet that Nourane Houas had been freed.

Houas, a staffer with the ICRC's humanitarian protection programme in Yemen, was abducted in the Houthi rebel-held capital Sanaa in December 2015.

The Omani foreign ministry said her release was secured "at the request of the French authorities, the instructions of Sultan Qaboos and in coordination with Yemeni parties" which it did not identify.

Back in May, Houas appeared in a video uploaded onto the internet urging French President Francois Hollande to negotiate for her freedom.

"I ask French President Francois Hollande, the legitimate president of the Republic of Yemen Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, the countries of the Arab coalition led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the leaders of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sanaa and Geneva to save me from near death, as soon as possible, by meeting the demands of my captors because my life and my health are in a very precarious state,” she said. 

Various armed clans and militants in Yemen have kidnapped westerners in recent years, primarily as “bargaining chips”, according to a France 24 report from last year. 

In August 2015, a French woman working for a World Bank-funded programme was freed after being held captive for six months.