Swiss Woman Kidnapped a Year Ago in Yemen Freed

Switzerland confirmed on Thursday that one of its nationals taken hostage in Yemen a year ago has been freed and has arrived in the Qatari capital Doha.

Swiss news agency ATS said Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter had already spoken to the woman by telephone.

She was in good health, despite having been held since March 2012, and was poised to return to her homeland, ATS reported.

The ministry hailed Qatar's role in freeing the 33-year-old woman, but gave no further details.

Gunmen abducted the woman from her home in Hodeida, on the Red Sea coast in western Yemen. She was working there as a language teacher.

Her abductors took her to the southeast province of Shabwa where the al-Qaida network has a strong presence. A Yemeni interior ministry spokesman said the abductors had called on the government to free members of their tribe in exchange for her release.

In a video posted on the Internet in May last year, the woman had said she was in the hands of al-Qaida, while in a second video, she implored Switzerland to help free her.

Most kidnappings of foreigners in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state are carried out by members of the country's powerful tribes who use them as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government.