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Hunt for abducted tourists intensifies

This photo dated February 2005 shows an Ethiopian helicopter escorting an expedition in Dalol, in the desert region of Afar. A manhunt was on in Ethiopia on Saturday after an unidentified group kidnapped five Europeans and 13 Ethiopians in the country's northeast. PHOTO: AFP

Britain stepped up efforts on Sunday to secure the release of five people linked to its Addis Ababa embassy feared kidnapped in Ethiopia, as Eritrea denied reports it was involved.

While the Foreign Office did not spell out that the group had been abducted, Britain's Europe minister Geoff Hoon spoke of obtaining their release and securing their freedom.

"Obviously, we are working as hard as we possibly can to identify their location and to secure their release," Hoon told ITV television.

The Ethiopian state news agency reported that the group was kidnapped in the remote Afar desert region on Thursday, some 50km from the Eritrean border.

The president of Afar, Ismail Ali Sero, on Saturday accused Eritrean soldiers of kidnapping the five British embassy-linked Europeans and 13 Ethiopians who were accompanying them.

Eritrea immediately denied the allegation.

"This is crazy, no one is involved in any business of kidnapping," Yemane Gebremeskel, the director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki's office, told AFP by telephone on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian police said the government had sent a team of police and defense officials to Hamed Ela, where the abduction took place.

"We are waiting for the team report that should be transmitted to the highest authorities as soon as possible," said Demsash Hailu, a federal police spokesman.

He said he could not confirm allegations of Eritrean involvement in the abductions.

Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have been tense since Eritrea gained independence from Addis Ababa in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war.

Britain has sent a crisis team to Ethiopia in an effort to obtain the release of the five, along with their Ethiopian drivers and interpreters.

The News of the World, Britain's biggest-selling newspaper, said a team of 20 elite British Special Air Service (SAS) troops were on standby in Kenya ready to fly in and perform a rescue mission.

Meanwhile, the Ethiopian state news agency said that five out of 13 Ethiopians believed to have been abducted were found by Ethiopian security forces patrolling the border.

The Eritrean information minister on Sunday repeated denials of Eritrean involvement in the abduction.

However, he acknowledged the difficulty to gather information from the remote desert Afar region, that straddles Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, where the group of tourists are believed to be held.

"It is a big place, we do not know exactly what is happening, and are just following the events ourselves," Ali said, speaking by telephone from Asmara.

He also accused arch-foe Ethiopia of trying to tarnish the image of Eritrea.

"People have to ask the motive for this, and people should not rule out that this is not all a gimmick -- for Ethiopia to use the catchwords of `terrorism' and `kidnapping' for their own public relations objective."

The Foreign Office on Sunday would not confirm that all five missing tourists -- three men and two women -- were British.

Instead, it repeated that they were members of staff, or relatives of members of staff of the Addis Ababa embassy.

According to the Italian foreign ministry, one of those kidnapped has dual British-Italian nationality.

Despite a peace deal after a 1998-2000 war, Ethiopia and Eritrea have yet to define the status of their 1,000km frontier.

The French government confirmed on Sunday that a group of seven French tourists, also reported missing in Afar, had arrived in Mekele.

The French tourists were in Hamed Ela just after the group that was abducted on Thursday. They said Ethiopian soldiers put them in a cave overnight to protect them.

"We saw several burned cars, including one with bullet holes in it," Patrick Dudescu, one of the French tourists said.

The cars of the abducted tourists had been reported destroyed there.

"The site was surrounded by armed men so we didn't get too close," he added.

Afar separatists started a low-level rebellion in the early 1990s against the division of the Afar people between the region's three countries.

The region's low-lying lunar landscape, with salt lakes and volcanoes, is a draw for tourists.
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