German girls kidnapped in Yemen healthy, speaking Arabic

May 22, 2010, 16:42 GMT

Berlin - Two young German girls who returned home this week after 11 months of captivity in Yemen were pictured smiling in German newspapers Saturday, alongside reports that they now spoke to each other in Arabic.

The girls, aged 4 and 6, were freed this week during a joint Yemeni-Saudi security operation after being seized last year along with their parents, younger brother, two other German women, a South Korean female teacher and a British engineer.

Lydia and Anne, as the girls are called, have been transferred to the home of relatives in Germany, where German media reported that they were settling in well.

The abducted father's brother-in-law, Reinhard Poetschke, said the girls spoke Arabic amongst themselves, but were gradually finding it easier to communicate in German.

'They call each other Fatima and Sarah,' Poetschke said.

'We therefore assume they had been separated from their parents for a long time,' he continued, adding that they had clearly been looked after well by the Yemeni tribe that was apparently keeping them.

The whereabouts of the girls' parents and their one-year-old brother remained unknown, along with the fate of a Briton who was captured alongside them on June 12, 2009. The other members of the group were found dead three days after the abduction.

Yemen's government had blamed Houthi rebels for the kidnapping, but rebel leaders denied they were involved.