SANAA, Dec 28: A German family of five, including a former high-ranking diplomat, have become the latest foreigners taken hostage by tribesmen in Yemen, tribal sources said on Wednesday.

They were abducted from a restaurant on the road to the southern port city of Aden from the eastern region of Shabwa, 480 kilometres east of the capital Sanaa, the source told AFP.

He said they have been held for some three days and that their captors had demanded ‘the release of tribesmen imprisoned in Aden’.

A German foreign ministry spokesman confirmed the disappearance of Juergen Chrobog — who served as German ambassador to the United States from 1995 to 2001 — and his family, but declined to say whether they had been kidnapped.

“Former foreign ministry state secretary Juergen Chrobog and his family are missing in Yemen,” the spokesman said.

However ARD television said that Chrobog had been taken hostage with his wife and three children.—AFP