According to security officials Pierre and Yolande Korkie, the South African couple who was kidnapped on May 27th are being held hostage by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.
The couple which had come to Yemen to pursue their teaching career was kidnapped by a group of unknown gunmen in the southern city of Taiz, an area so far deemed safe for foreign tourists.
Pierre an English school teacher and his wife Yolande a pre-primary teacher moved to Yemen four years ago.
A top security official told Agence France Presse on Thursday that "investigations are not very promising." He added, "It’s almost confirmed that the two South Africans are now held by al-Qaida men.
Whether the couple's kidnapping was directly engineered by terror militants or simply bought off a tribe as a mean to an end remains to be established.
Back in December 2012, al-Qaeda contracted tribesmen to kidnap three European nationals based in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital. Within weeks of their abduction the authorities revealed that for the first time al-Qaeda had outsourced foreign agents to do their bidding, hoping to throw off Yemen security services.
Following months of intense negotiating with al-Qaeda, the state of Oman intervened on behalf of the kidnapped trio, securing their safe release by paying up a hefty ransom.
Tribal sources in Taiz have now revealed that the terror group is operating several cells in the area, a news which reinforces security experts' warnings that al-Qaeda has metastasize across the whole of Yemen.