A Norwegian UN employee kidnapped by tribesmen in Yemen earlier this month was back in the capital Sanaa on Friday after being freed by his captors in the restive east. “I am very pleased and relieved that the Norwegian who was kidnapped in Yemen has been released and that he is unharmed,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement. The 34-year-old, identified by Norwegian media as Gert Danielsen, was “freed around midnight (2200 GMT) on Thursday following tribal mediation,” said Sheikh Sultan al-Arada, a tribal chief in Marib province, who was involved in the negotiations. The Sanaa office of the United Nations Development Programme said in a statement that the staffer arrived on Friday in a “UN safe haven” in the capital. “I am happy to be free again and I wish to thank all those who have worked hard for my release,” commented the freed staffer in the statement. “I am relieved that this experience is over,” he added. UN resident coordinator in Yemen Jens Toyberg-Frandzen said the team was delighted to have their colleague back “unharmed.” The UNDP statement said Danielsen, who has worked as a governance team leader, will travel home for a short holiday before resuming his duties. Interior Minister Abdulqader Qahtan welcomed the freed hostage at his home in Sanaa early on Friday, after the tribal mediators brought him to the capital from Marib, ministry staff said. The hostage had been seized off the street in Sanaa nearly two weeks ago by armed men aiming to put pressure on the Yemeni government to release members of their tribe being held for, among other things, killing four soldiers.
