Three French hostages kidnapped by Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen more than five months ago were on their way home on Monday after being freed on payment of a ransom.

The three French hostages

Three French hostages kidnapped by Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen more than five months ago were on their way home on Monday after being freed on payment of a ransom, tribal sources and correspondents said.

"We, the three of us, are very thankful to his majesty Sultan Qaboos of Oman for his involvement and all the efforts deployed to lead us to freedom and we are very grateful for the great hospitality we have had during our stay in Oman," one of the hostages told reporters on his arrival in Oman.

"We are very happy to go back to our families and to be finally free," he said reading out from a statement.

The trio -- two women and one man -- arrived at the Al-Seeb airbase near Muscat on an Omani military plane midday (08:00 GMT) Monday, gave a brief statement to the press and then boarded a French plane to Paris. They have not been identified.

The former hostages were greeted at the military airbase by France's ambassador to Oman, Malika Berak who said the French citizens "are healthy" and thanked Sultan Qaboos for his "efforts" in securing their release.

The three aid workers had flown in from the Omani city of Salalah, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital and near the border with Yemen where they had been held captive, a tribal official involved in their release told media sources.

Local Yemen sources said Monday that leaders of the Al-Awalaq tribe led negotiations with Fahd al-Qusso, a tribe member and a leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which kidnapped the three.

The hostages had been held in Shabwa, the ancestral homeland of Anwar al-Awlaqi, the US-born Islamic cleric and Al-Qaeda leader who was killed in a suspected US drone strike in September.

Foreigners have frequently been kidnapped in Yemen by tribes who use the tactic to pressure the authorities into making concessions.

More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Yemen over the past 15 years, with almost all of them later freed unharmed.