A British team of police and security experts were last night flying to the Yemen to help in the hunt for a Briton kidnapped by a suspected al-Qaeda gang.

Yemeni authorities yesterday carried out land and air searches as they announced a $275,000 (£167,000) reward would be given for information leading to the arrest of the kidnappers.

Fears have been growing for the missing British engineer, a German doctor, his wife and three young children, after the bodies of three of their female friends were discovered on Monday. The women, which included two German nurses, both devout Christians, and a South Korean teacher, were shot and stabbed to death.

The group of aid workers were abducted in the mountainous Saada province last Friday after going to the area for a picnic.

The plight of those missing, also thought to be linked to a Baptist group working at a hospital in the province of Sadaa, remained unclear last night.

The Briton, named only as Anthony, had been working at the al-Jumhori Hospital in Saada. A German medical technician, Johannes, 36, his wife Sabine, 36, and their three children Lydia, four, Anna, three, and Simon, one, had joined him on a day out. The two German nurses, Anita, 24, and Rita, 25, and the South Korean teacher, Young Sun Eom, 34, were also on the trip.

All the adults were believed to have been either working or visiting the hospital as part of Dutch-based Worldwide Services relief group aid programme.

Shepherds found the mutilated bodies of nurses and the teacher on Monday in the Noshour area. The bodies were yesterday airlifted to a military hospital in the country in preparation for their repatriation.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the kidnap or killings, it is feared that Islamic extremists, often linked to the neighbouring province of Al-Jawf, a region marked by tribal clashes, could have been responsible.

The British team, which was due to land in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital early this morning, will work with the country’s military and intelligence network to try to help trace those missing.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has spoken to Anthony’s British wife who had decided not to attend the picnic and so remains at her accommodation in Saada.

“Extra personnel have been deployed to Sanaa, including police and security officials,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. “They will be assisting embassy staff and liaising with German and Korean colleagues.”

The two nurses were both Baptists and students of a Bible School in Lemgo, northwest Germany, near the Dutch border.

A statement from the school says the women, who were “engaged students with a love for God and people”, were on a three-month internship to Yemen as nursing sisters, also organised by the Dutch-based Worldwide Services.

Rita came from near Wolfsburg and was a keen amateur gymnast, and a fan of Wolfsburg soccer team.

Two German forensic experts have been sent to the country to obtain a positive identification of the women, who had been there since June.

Worldwide Services has been operating for 35 years at the Saada hospital.

Young Sun Eom, the South Korean worker, arrived in Yemen last October as a volunteer teacher working for Worldwide Service.

Helicopters were sweeping across the northern province to try to spot signs of the Westerners or their captors. “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 said.

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