SHABWA — Yemeni authorities continue to search for Sylvia Abrahat, a 32-year-old Swiss woman who was abducted last Tuesday from the 7th of July street in Hodeida governorate.

While media outlets have reported that the Swiss teacher is in the Baihan area of shabwa governorate, east Yemen, the Secretary General of the Baihan local council, Abdullah Al-Bahri, denied the veracity of the news, saying he expected that Abrahat would be in Haban or the Al-Saeed district near Ataq in Shabwa governorate.

He said that the Al-Saeed area is considered  to be among the most important areas for Ansar Al-Shariah, and pointed out that the government is totally absent in these areas.

In this area, authorities released three French relief workers who were abducted in July 2011 and freed in November of the same year.

He said the release of the relief workers was mediated by a Yemeni businessman, Ahmed Bin Freed Al-Soraima,who managed their release without government intervention.

Al-Bahri quoted tribal sources as saying the abductors demanded the release of two prisoners, Ahmed Ali Marjan and Fayz Mohammad Mahdi Elaiwah, both detained in Hodeida's central jail.

Al-Bahri added that the former was imprisoned on charges of banditry, while the latter had been detained on the orders of a commercial court.

While sources said the abductors contacted a friend of Abrahat's in Hodeida on Thursday, telling the friend that Abrahat was in Baihan in Shabwah, Al-Bahri said that local suspects had been brought to the police and that they had denied having any involvement with the issue.

Abrahat worked as a teacher at the International Education Center, a foreign language institute in Hodeida.