Three French hostages kidnapped by al Qaeda militants in Yemen more than five months ago were on their way home on Monday after being freed on payment of a ransom, tribal sources said. "We, the three of us, are very thankful to his majesty Sultan Qaboos of Oman for his involvement and all the efforts deployed to lead us to freedom and we are very grateful for the great hospitality we have had during our stay in Oman," one of the hostages told reporters on arrival in the capital.
"We are very happy to go back to our families and to be finally free," he said, reading a statement. The trio - two women and a man - arrived at Al-Seeb airbase near Muscat on an Omani military plane at around midday (0800 GMT), and gave a brief statement before boarding a French plane to Paris. They have not been identified.
The former hostages were greeted at the military airbase by France's ambassador to Oman, Malika Berak, who said the French citizens were healthy and thanked Sultan Qaboos for his efforts in securing their release. The aid workers flew in from the Omani city of Salalah, about 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) south of the capital and near the border with Yemen, a tribal official involved in their release told AFP. The male hostage sported a beard and one of the women was wearing a long skirt while the other wore pants.