KHARTOUM (AFP) — Sudanese forces were besieging a remote desert hideout on Wednesday where bandits are holding 19 people captive, including European tourists, but said they would not storm the area.
The tourists, along with Egyptian drivers, guides and a guard, were snatched by masked gunmen on Friday as they were on a desert safari to view prehistoric art around Gilf el-Kabir in southwestern Egypt. They were then taken to Sudan.
A Sudanese official said the hostages were alive and that negotiations were continuing with the kidnappers, who have reportedly demanded a ransom of up to 15 million dollars.
"Our aim is to help secure their release unharmed as quickly as possible," Ali Yousuf, director of protocol at the foreign ministry told AFP.
Elderly travellers in their 70s are among the five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian being held in the desert, where daytime temperatures can hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) even in September.
"The hostages are all well, according to the information that we have," Yousuf said.
He said Germany was in contact with the kidnappers, but Berlin has not commented on its role beyond saying it has set up a crisis group.
Authorities only became aware of the abduction on Monday when the tour group leader phoned his German wife to tell her of the ransom demand.
An Egyptian security official said he hoped the drama would be resolved "in a day or two."
Sudan said on Tuesday its forces "are besieging the area," a no-man's land straddling the Sudanese, Libyan and Egyptian borders.
"Their position has been pinpointed and there is coordination between Sudan and Egyptian authorities in this regard (but) there is no intention of storming into the area so as to preserve the lives of the kidnapped persons," foreign ministry undersecretary Mutrief Sadiq said.
An Egyptian security official told AFP the kidnappers were "most likely Chadian" after Sudan had said they were Egyptian.
Sudan has said the group is being held 25 kilometres (17 miles) inside its territory at Jebel Uweinat.
Egypt's independent Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported that five pieces of luggage had been found scattered inside Egypt, apparently thrown from moving vehicles.
Egypt, which has sent a team to Sudan to try to secure the release of the hostages, has said the hostages are in good health and have enough food and water.
"They have not been badly treated," Tourism Minister Zuhair Garana said on Tuesday.
The tourism ministry in Egypt, which relies heavily on earnings from foreign visitors, has said it was "an act of banditry not of terrorism."
Egypt has also denied reports the kidnappers had threatened to kill the hostages if any attempt were made to rescue them, in particular to "reach them by aircraft."
Sudan has authorised Egypt to use aircraft to "chase the kidnappers of tourists," the Sudan Media Center, which is close to the intelligence services, reported on Wednesday, without elaborating.
The area of the kidnapping is a desert plateau famous for prehistoric cave paintings, including the "Cave of the Swimmers" featured in the 1996 film "The English Patient."
One travel agent told AFP that in January a German group was attacked and robbed in the same area by unknown assailants. They were abandoned in the desert with nothing but a satellite telephone.
Ahmed Mukhtar, the governor of Wadi el-Gedid province where the tourists were taken, said the kidnapping had not discouraged tourism there and that five groups of European tourists were currently on safari in the area, the state-run MENA news agency reported.
But a manager at Minamar Hotel, which organizes excursions to Gilf el-Kabir, told AFP the hotel had cancelled trips to the region after the kidnapping.
Kidnappings of foreigners are extremely rare in Egypt, although in 2001 an armed Egyptian held four German tourists hostage for three days in the Nile resort of Luxor, demanding that his estranged wife bring his two sons back from Germany. He freed the hostages unharmed.
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