The German Foreign Ministry confirmed late Wednesday that former senior diplomat Juergen Chrobog is among five family members kidnapped in Yemen.

Chrobog, who served as German ambassador to the United States from 1995 to 2001, had been taken hostage Wednesday with his wife and three children, a German foreign ministry spokesman said.

Chrobog, 65, served as foreign ministry state secretary under former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Earlier Wednesday a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the family of five was part of a travel group touring Yemen and had failed to turn up at an agreed meeting point.

The German Foreign Ministry had received information of the kidnapping and a crisis team had been set up to deal with the situation, the spokesman said.

The five were abducted in the eastern province of Shabwa some 460 kilometers from the capital of Sana'a.

The German News Agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), reported from Yemen that the five and their Yemeni driver were taken from a restaurant on the highway between the port city of Aden and the provincial capital, Shabwa.

The kidnappers are demanding that one of their tribe members be released from prison in Aden.

The Yemeni Interior Ministry also confirmed the kidnapping and said police had located and sealed off the place where the hostages were being held, the DPA said.

"We located their place and security forces were deployed to seal off the area," the DPA quoted a Yemeni official as saying.

However, the DPA also quoted German officials as saying the family may have been involved in a traffic accident.

It is the fourth abduction of foreign tourists in Yemen this year.

This is also the second time in two months that German nationals have been abducted abroad. On Nov. 25, Susanne Osthoff, an archaeologist and aid worker, was abducted along with her driver in Iraq but was released last month.

(Xinhua News Agency December 29, 2005)