More than 24 hours after a French development worker and her Yemeni colleague were kidnapped in Sanaa, it remains unclear who their captors are or what their demands might be, their employer said Wednesday.
Isabelle Prime, 30, and her colleague were abducted Tuesday in the heart of the Yemeni capital as they were being driven to work, reportedly by armed men dressed as police officers.
Their driver was released after several hours, but the whereabouts of the two women remains unknown, Francisco Ayala, president of Ayala Consulting, told AFP in a telephone interview from Ecuador.
"It is a mystery," he said, adding that there has been no contact so far with the kidnappers.
The interior ministry in Yemen, which is leading the investigation with help from Ayala's local security advisers, "are telling us that they are working on the case... but we don't know anything concrete as yet," he added.
"I hope they (the kidnappers) contact them or us or anybody very soon to understand what it is they want or who they are."
Prime was in Yemen under a World Bank-funded contract between Ayala and the Yemeni government aimed at improving the Middle East nation's procedures for distributing social welfare payments to needy families.
Ayala Consulting, based in Ecuador and suburban Miami, specializes in such financial development assistance in developing countries.
Prime was the firm's last expatriate staff member in Yemen. She was due to leave in a matter of days due to the worsening security situation in the country.