CAIRO -- The United Nations said Friday that five staff members who were kidnapped in Yemen 18 months ago have walked free.

In a brief statement, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said that all “available information suggests that all five colleagues are in good health.”

Haq named the freed men as Akm Sufiul Anam; Mazen Bawazir; Bakeel al-Mahdi; Mohammed al-Mulaiki; and Khaled Mokhtar Sheikh. All worked for the U.N. Department of Security and Safety, he said.

The identity of the kidnappers was not revealed.

In February 2022, suspected al-Qaida militants abducted five U.N. workers in southern Yemen's Abyan province, Yemeni officials told the Associated Press at the time.

Kidnappings are frequent in Yemen, an impoverished nation where armed tribesmen and militants take hostages to swap for prisoners or cash.