Foreign Tourists Kidnapped in Egypt

A group of 15 foreign tourists, including five Italians, were kidnapped Monday in southern Egypt, according to Egyptian officials and the Italian Foreign Ministry. Details remain unclear and a breakdown of the tourists’ nationalities wasn’t available.

A security official in Aswan, 425 miles south of the capital Cairo, said authorities there were trying to determine the circumstances of the abduction. An Egyptian government official said the kidnapping took place at a remote location near the Sudanese-Egyptian border south of Aswan. “We don’t know yet who did this and we don’t know the whereabouts of the tourists,” he said.

The last major attack on foreign tourists in the Nile Valley took place in 1997 when 58 were killed by militants in the ancient temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor.

The Wall Street Journal

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under Tourism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.