More re Kidnapping of Tourists in Egypt
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Egypt’s tourism minister insisted the mass abduction in Gilf al-Kabir, where a gang of masked bandits have kidnapped five Italians, five Germans, one Romanian and eight Egyptians who were on a desert safari in an area on the edge of the Sahara, was a criminal rather than a terrorist act, and said that negotiations were under way for the captives’ release. The kidnappers were said to have asked for a ransom of up to six million dollars. Among those taken away was the Egyptian tour company operator, who used a satellite phone to call his wife and tell them they were being taken away by masked men speaking English “with an African accent”.
The area is so isolated that officials did not seem to know exactly when the kidnapping had happened, with some German sources saying it occurred on Friday. The visitors had been touring the desert plateau to view its rugged landscape and admire the Neolithic cave paintings, among the best preserved in the world, such as the Cave of the Swimmers, made famous in the 1996 filmThe English Patient. The nearest inhabited oasis is more than 300 miles away, and visiting takes at least 10 days of rough travel in jeeps or on camels. Its isolation made it an important base for British troops fighting Italian and German forces in Libya in World War II.
Attacks have until now been almost unheard of in the far-flung reaches of the southwest, where the Sahara washes up against a vast sandstone and limestone plateau rising 1,000 feet above the Great Sand Sea near the Sudanese and Libyan borders. No group has taken responsibility for the crime, raising hopes that the attack was merely a criminal act that could be resolved peacefully, rather than as an act of terrorism.
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