The Foreign Office in London yesterday identified the latest two British citizens to be taken hostage in Yemen, as tour operators said they were cancelling all trips to the troubled Middle Eastern country.
The two, who were kidnapped by Yemeni gunmen along with four Dutch nationals on Sunday, were named as aid workers Mr Eddie Rosser and his wife, Mary, both in their 60s.
They were half-way through a six-month contract with the Dutch-based aid organisation Worldwide Services when they were held up with the four Dutch people, all from one family, in a convoy of three cars on a road north of the capital, Sanaa.
The Foreign Office said that Yemeni authorities had pledged not to use force to try and rescue the hostages, following the death last month of four hostages, including three Britons, in an attempt to free them from a radical Yemeni Islamic group.
Meanwhile, Mr Paul Chandler, chairman of the Association of Independent Tour Operators, said that all tours to Yemen had been cancelled in response to repeated incidents of hostage-takings.
"Nobody is sending anyone out there for at least the next two months and I would be amazed if there is a single UK tourist still out there," he said.
The Foreign Office is strongly advising against all non-essential foreign travel to Yemen.
In 1997 there were 84,000 foreign tourists visiting Yemen, including 6,385 from Britain.
Yemeni authorities were yesterday in contact with the kidnappers, a Dutch embassy official said in Sanaa.
"We are in contact with Yemeni authorities. We know that they are in contact with the kidnappers. Contact is going on," said the official.
He said the Dutch family, including two boys aged six and seven, and the British couple had been travelling in three cars from northern Yemen to Sanaa when they were kidnapped.
He said the men worked at a hospital in the town of Sadaah, north of Sanaa.
The Dutch family had been living in Yemen for several years, he added.
He refused to comment on whether Yemen had assured Britain and the Netherlands that it would not use force to free them.
A Yemeni Interior Ministry official had earlier said the government had assured Britain and the Netherlands it would not use force.
He said the hostages were believed to be held by tribesmen in a northern area called Tart.
"We believe the kidnappers are tribesmen wanting the release of one of their people who is in prison," the official said.
In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said British and Dutch officials were working with Yemeni authorities to try to secure the hostages' release.
