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Two Americans Held Captive In Yemen Released

Omani officials reportedly mediated their release.
Hilltop fort on rocky outcrop overlooking the Muttrah Corniche and harbour in Muscat Oman
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Hilltop fort on rocky outcrop overlooking the Muttrah Corniche and harbour in Muscat Oman

SANAA (Reuters) - Two Americans held captive in Yemen were freed and flown to Muscat in neighboring Oman on Saturday night after Omani officials mediated their release, Omani state media reported.

Oman state television broadcast footage of the two Americans disembarking from a plane belonging to the Royal Air Force of Oman. Yemenis wounded in the civil war there were also flown over for treatment in Oman aboard the same plane, it reported.

A Foreign Ministry official told the broadcaster Oman had worked with Yemeni authorities in Sanaa to secure the Americans’ release. A Houthi official confirmed their departure from Sanaa.

The U.S. State Department expressed gratitude to the Omani government for facilitating the release and recognized the action as a “humanitarian gesture” by the Houthis, the northern Yemeni armed group that seized control of the capital Sanaa in 2014.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari, Omar Fahmy, Katie Paul and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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