A DUTCH couple kidnapped at the end of March spoke about their “adventure” upon their release in mid April, where they were “warmly welcomed by the Ministry of Tourism,” according to a press release issued by Dunira Strategy, representatives of the Yemen Tourism Promotion Board in the UK and Ireland.
Expatriates Jan Hoogendoorn, a water engineer, and his wife Heleen Janszen a teacher, who had been living in Yemen for three years, were abducted by al-Siraj clansmen.
There were taken to al-Siraj (Mountains of the Lamp) to a remote mountain village 60 miles east of Sana’a. Throughout their kidnap the couple had contact with the outside world via telephone and assured Yemen’s Minister of Tourism HE Nabil Al-Faqih that they were being “treated well”. They also received visits from journalists, who were encouraged to interview them, according to the press release.
After their release, the Yemen Observer reported Hoogendoorn as saying, “We are in a good condition and it is a nice area. We have a lot of books to read and would like to live in it,” while Janzen told the Associated Press, “It was a very classical kidnapping situation. We were offered lunch and tea, and were allowed to take a walk and take pictures. It’s such an adventure.”
The press release stressed that “these acts are unwelcome crimes”, and that no matter how generous kidnappers might be, such events always involved risks and that the Ministry of Tourism constantly monitored security measures along with the Tourist Police and Ministry of Interior.
Al-Faqih and his officials, who remained close to the Dutch kidnap situation throughout, spoke regularly to the couple and the clan chief Sheikh Ali Nasser al-Siraj, who described the couple as “guests”.
For Yemen’s tourism industry, this event was yet another blow.
Benjamin Carey, representing Yemen’s Ministry of Tourism in the UK said, “Tourism offers an outstanding opportunity to alleviate poverty and ultimately to tackle some of the country’s more disenchanted young men by offering alternative livelihoods, especially in some of the more remote and disadvantaged rural areas.”
“Yet, with the UK and other governments now applying a blanket advisory ‘against all but essential travel’ to the whole country, the prospects for tourism and much needed economic development look bleak.”
Hoogendoorn and Janszen said that they intended to remain in the country.
Yemen’s most recent fatal terrorist attacks targeting tourists occurred at Ma’rib in July 2007, where eight Spanish tourists and two Yemeni guides were killed; Wadi Do’an, January 2008, two Belgian tourists and two Yemeni guides were killed; and with the most recent attacks being in March 2009, when a South Korean group was attacked at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Shibam Hadhramaut, when four South Korean tourists and their Yemeni guide were killed.