Four Dutch citizens - a couple and their two children - and two Britons were kidnapped by unidentified men in Yemen yesterday, Dutch foreign ministry officials said in The Hague last night.
The six were seized while driving from Sadah, in the north of the country, toward Sanaa, according to the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Arrien Lekker kerker.
There was no immediate indication of who was behind the kidnapping or their motives.
In London, the British Foreign Office said officials were trying to contact the families of the missing British pair last night. But the Foreign Office declined to give their identities.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said the group left the northern town of Sadah yesterday in three vehicles for a meeting in Sanaa, approximately 200 km away. When they failed to appear, the people they had been due to meet alerted the authorities. The three vehicles were later found empty and abandoned by the roadside.
The ministry added that the Dutch family were residents of Sadah, where the parents worked for a US humanitarian organisation.
Tribal chiefs in northern Yemen were working to identify the kidnappers, a Yemeni politician said.
"The tribal sheikhs are making contact with each other to identify the kidnappers and find out their demands," said the deputy, from the region of Huran where the six were snatched.
A tribal leader, speaking under condition of anonymity, said that the six, whom he identified as tourists, were kidnapped at around 1 p.m. (11 a.m. Irish time) at a point 140 km north of the capital.
Yemen's security services have remained tight-lipped so far about the kidnapping, the second in eight days.
Middle Eastern experts said they suspected Yemeni tribesmen might be staging a copycat kidnapping after rumours that a ransom had been paid last week for the release of another British hostage, oil worker Mr John Brooke. He was seized by Yemeni tribesmen on January 9th and released a few days later unharmed.
More than 150 foreign residents or tourists have been kidnapped by local tribesmen in Yemen in the past five years.
Last month a kidnapping ended tragically when three British and one Australian hostage - part of a group of 16 people kidnapped - were killed as Yemeni security forces attacked their captors. Three members of an armed group called Islamic Jihad are currently on trial in Yemen over the incident.