Sana’a: Doctors and human rights activists have condemned the abduction of a Tajik nurse from Mareb Military Hospital in central Yemen, and urged government and security forces to speed up investigation efforts to secure the release of the nurse.
On Wednesday, a group of armed men kidnapped a midwife while she was walking to the hospital and took her to an unknown area, local doctors said.
Dr Ahmad Dahmas, the hospital’s director, told Gulf News that doctors and locals arranged a sit-in and a protest in Mareb city to demand the release of their colleague.
“We are in contact with security services and local dignitaries to pressure the abductors to free her,” Dahmas said adding that the police are working to identify the armed men.
“There was a similar incident that occurred in the city four months ago when a Uzbek doctor was kidnapped. They released him a week later.”
There are as 15 foreign doctors including Indians and Russians in the same hospital who fear being kidnapped.
“We intensified security measures to protect the remaining doctors from abduction,” the doctor said.
Human rights activists in Mareb city demanded the minister of interior and local tribal leaders to work together to hunt the attackers and release the nurse.
Abdul Aleem Al Mudae, a local human rights activist, attributed the abduction of the nurse and many other people to deteriorating security and proliferation of arms in the restive province.
“This indicates the local authority’s inability to restore security in the province. The security apparatus are responsible for the abduction of the nurse since the abductors managed to pass through the checkpoints,” he said.
Al Mudae said that consecutive government and security chiefs in the province could not address this issue. “Many kidnappings have happened in the past and there is no single perpetrator was brought to justice.”
Kidnappings are a commonplace occurrence in Yemen as many armed men snatch foreigners to swap them with high payments from their Yemen government or their countries.
Early this year, kidnappers of South African teacher, Pierre Korkie, who was abducted last year, demanded a $3 million (Dh11 million) ransom to release him.
In September 2013, an American photojournalist, Luke Somers, was kidnapped in the heart of the Yemeni capital Sana’a. A month later, gunmen kidnapped a Sierra Leonean national working with the Unicef from northern Sana’a.
