CAIRO: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reported that a French aid worker who had been kidnapped in Yemen's northern region in April has been released and is doing well. The group said on Saturday in a short statement that the man has been freed and was in “good health.” “Benjamin Malbrancke, the delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross abducted on 21 April by armed individuals near the town of Hodeida, in northern Yemen, is free,” the humanitarian agency said in a brief statement. The ICRC did not comment on who was behind the kidnapping, saying they would leave it for other investigations to be conducted. ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan told Reuters in Geneva: “He [Malbrancke] was handed over to ICRC representatives by Ansar al-Sharia on Friday. We don't know who the abductors were.” It is the latest in a turbulent few months for the ICRC in Yemen. Last month, a Yemeni citizen working with the aid group was killed in an air attack in Abyan province. A local official told Reuters news agency that the Yemeni air force had conducted the strike that killed the aid worker, “who he said had been trying to contact al Qaeda militants in order to negotiate the release of his French colleague.”
