Security forces pressed on with a manhunt in northern Yemen on Tuesday after the killings of three foreign women, as the fate of six other foreign kidnap victims remained unclear.
"The security forces are continuing a huge search operation in Saada province to track down the kidnappers of the nine foreign nationals," an interior ministry official told AFP.
On Monday, the ministry confirmed that at least three hostages had been killed: two Germans and a South Korean, all women. Their bodies were found in the province's Noshour region.
It was the first time in almost a decade that a kidnapping in Yemen has resulted in deaths.
"Preparations are underway for the transfer to Sanaa of the bodies of the two Germans and the South Korean ahead of their repatriation," Ali al-Qatabri, the director of Saada's Al-Jumhuriya hospital, told AFP.
Seven Germans, including three children and two female nurses, were abducted last week in the volatile Saada province along with a male British engineer and the woman from South Korea.
There were conflicting reports coming out of Yemen on Monday. A local official put the number of dead at seven, adding that two of the children had reportedly been found alive.
Another source close to the investigation said examinations had shown the corpses, including one child, had been found shot and stabbed.
The missing nine belong to an international relief group that has worked for 35 years at a hospital in Saada, which borders Saudi Arabia, according to Yemeni officials.
South Korea on Tuesday confirmed that one of its citizens has been murdered.
"The government expresses anger and shock over the confirmed killing of our citizen ... and seriously condemns this," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It did not identify the woman but South Korean media reports and officials gave her name as Eom Young-Sun, 34.
A report in Tuesday's edition of Sueddeutsche Zeitung said German intelligence services believed all nine hostages had been killed by Al-Qaeda but did not substantiate its claims.
Local sources said the group was a Christian Baptist organisation that also has a medical team in the hospital at Jebla, south of Sanaa, where an Islamist militant killed three American doctors in December 2002.
Foreigners are often kidnapped in Yemen by tribesmen to use as bargaining chips with the government over local disputes. More than 200 foreigners have been abducted over the past 15 years.
All have previously been freed unharmed, except for three Britons and an Australian seized by Islamist militants in December 1998 who were killed when security forces stormed the kidnappers' hideout.
A Norwegian diplomat was killed in an gunfight between the police and his abductors in June 2000.
