The Foreign Ministry says nine members of an international volunteer medical service organization, including a South Korean woman, went missing in Yemen on Friday local time.

The ministry said Sunday that the members of Worldwide Service were out for a walk in Saada, some 200 kilometers north of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, at 4 p.m. Friday when they went missing.

A ministry official says that given all indications, they are presumed to have been kidnapped. But he said the ministry could not confirm whether they were abducted because no organization has claimed responsibility for abducting the group.

The ministry identified the 34-year-old missing South Korean only by her surname Eom.

The ministry official said the South Korean Embassy in Yemen is cooperating with Yemeni authorities and the governments of Germany and Britain to find out the whereabouts of the missing group, and discuss how to respond if they are confirmed to have been abducted.

The AFP news agency reported earlier in the day that a South Korean female teacher, seven German nationals and a British engineer were kidnapped by Shiite rebels in the restive Saada region of north Yemen and that most of the abductees were women and children.

Worldwide Service is a nongovernmental volunteer medical and educational organization headquartered in the Netherlands.