"We were so, so scared!" freed hostage Patrizia Rossi said by phone at the end of the kidnapping crisis.
"The tensest moment was this morning when we were freed," she told Italian television. "That was a real moment of terror. Then, when we realised we were free, we collapsed emotionally. But we are all fine."
The three women and two men arrived at Sanaa airport in a military helicopter which had carried them from the lawless region of Marib 170 kilometres east of the capital where they were snatched on Sunday.
The official SABA news agency said the five were freed "in a military operation" while a tribal dignitary involved in negotiations said both mediation and military action had secured their release.
“A massacre would have taken place had it not been for talks and mediations," Sheikh Jouail Touaiman, who met the kidnappers told AFP.
Italy had demanded that the Yemeni government not use force to free them after the hostage-takers warned they would execute their captives if an assault took place.
"We thought we would die. During our last night we had to stay lying on the ground in silence," Piergiorgio Gamba, a doctor from the northern city of Padua, told the Italian news agency Ansa.
"It was like wartime," said Enzo Bottillo, 51, head of a driving school in the Padua region. "We had no luggage and we were very cold".
Ms Rossi said the troops got close to the hideout where they were kept but she spoke of brief negotiations between captors and the troops.
"We heard helicopters hovering over the place. Shortly after, a captor walked out and started negotiating with the security forces in a loud and tense voice," she told AFP.
Elation in Rome
In Rome, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hailed the release and thanked the Yemeni government.
"I want to express my deepest satisfaction at this freeing without bloodshed and I sincerely thank the government of Yemen for its precious help," he said.
Pope Benedict XVI also expressed his joy over the news.
The five were seized by tribesmen seeking to settle a local vendetta in the Marib region.
Their kidnapping occurred a day after a German family of five, including a retired top diplomat, was freed. It was the fourth abduction of foreigners within the space of three months.