BREAKING NEWS: Trump announces recovery of American hostage in Yemen
Washington (CNN) - President
Donald Trump announced Monday that the United States has recovered
Danny Burch, an American citizen who was being held hostage in Yemen for
the last year and a half.
"It
is my honor today to announce that Danny Burch, a United States citizen
who has been held hostage in Yemen for 18 months, has been recovered
and reunited with his wife and children," Trump tweeted. "I appreciate
the support of the United Arab Emirates in bringing Danny home. Danny's
recovery reflects the best of what the United States & its partners
can accomplish."
He
continued, "We work every day to bring Americans home. We maintain
constant and intensive diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement
cooperation within the United States Government and with our foreign
partners. Recovering American hostages is a priority of my Admin, and
with Danny's release, we have now secured freedom for 20 American
captives since my election victory. We will not rest as we continue our
work to bring the remaining American hostages back home!"
Burch, according to The New York Times,
is an American oil worker who had spent years working as an engineer
for a Yemeni oil company when he was abducted in Sanaa, Yemen, in 2017.
According to Reuters, Iran-aligned Houthi forces were behind Burch's kidnapping.
In
a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo applauded "the innumerable
lines of effort from across the U.S. Government to enable this effort,
to include the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Robert
O'Brien, U.S. Embassy Abu Dhabi, and the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell."
"Today
(Burch) is safe and secure, and is reunited with his wife and
children," the statement continued. "The family has asked for privacy as
they recover from this ordeal. The safety and well-being of Americans
remains one of the highest priorities of the Trump Administration."
The
announcement of Burch's recovery came as the President traveled to
Vietnam for his upcoming summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un.
Here’s the announcement:
It is my honor today to announce that Danny Burch, a United States citizen who has been held hostage in Yemen for 18 months, has been recovered and reunited with his wife and children. I appreciate the support of the United Arab Emirates in bringing Danny home...— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
...Danny’s recovery reflects the best of what the United States & its partners can accomplish.We work every day to bring Americans home. We maintain constant and intensive diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement cooperation within the United States Government and with...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
...our foreign partners. Recovering American hostages is a priority of my Admin, and with Danny’s release, we have now secured freedom for 20 American captives since my election victory. We will not rest as we continue our work to bring the remaining American hostages back home!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
This is great news! Trump has clearly put a priority on freeing American hostages held in other countries. We’ve now seen this play out time and time again.
In case you aren’t familiar with Danny Burch, he has been held hostage since 2017, indicated from this NY Times article written in September of that year:
An American oil worker was abducted from his car by unidentified gunmen on a busy street in the Yemeni capital, his wife and colleagues said on Monday.The American, Danny Lavone Burch, 63, had spent years in Yemen working as an engineer at a Yemeni oil company when he was abducted on Saturday morning.“They did it in broad daylight in front of everyone,” Nadia Forsa, Mr. Burch’s wife, said by phone from Sana, the capital.
“I knew that something was wrong,” she said.The police later told her that witnesses said he had been stopped on a busy street in Sana by five armed men in civilian clothes who drove a pickup truck with no license plates.After they took Mr. Burch away, two of them parked his car on a side street, where Ms. Forsa later found it, she said.“When I saw the car, my heart fell,” she said.She told the couple’s sons that their father was traveling and that she looked upset because he had not told her ahead of time. “I don’t want to ruin their lives,” she said.The abduction took place in a part of Yemen that is tightly controlled by the Houthis and where Al Qaeda is not believed to have an active presence.
I’m very glad this long saga is over for him and that he’s been reunited with this family.
A great success for the Trump administration!
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