Sahara kidnappers holding 19 hostages including 11 European tourists moved from Sudan into Libya yesterday, a Sudanese government spokesman said.
“The group moved towards the Libyan border and then crossed the border, and they are now 13km to 15km inside Libya,” said Ali Youssef Ahmed, head of protocol in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry.
The bandits have asked for Germany to be responsible for paying a ransom of 6 million euros, an Egyptian security official said on yesterday.
“The kidnappers have asked for the German government to be the only ones to be responsible for paying the 6 million euro [US$8.8 million] ransom as the condition for releasing the hostages,” the official said, asking not to be named.
The group of five Germans, five Italians and a Romanian as well as eight Egyptian drivers and guides was snatched by masked bandits while on a desert safari to view prehistoric art in Egypt’s remote southwest last Friday.
Egypt has said Germany is heading negotiations via the German wife of the Egyptian tour operator who is among the missing. Berlin has only said it has set up a kidnap crisis team.
“The 6 million euros are to be given to the German wife” to bring to the kidnappers, the official said.
Several different ransom figures have been cited since the group was first reported missing on Monday. The bandits have taken the group across the border into Sudan. Sudan has said the group is being held 25km inside its territory at Jebel Uweinat and Sudanese forces “are besieging the area.”
Khartoum has said the hostages have not been harmed and it has no intention of storming the area “so as to preserve the lives of the kidnapped persons.”
Travelers in their 70s are among the hostages being held in the desert, where daytime temperatures can hit 40°C even during this month.
The area of the kidnapping is a desert plateau famous for its ancient cave paintings, including the Cave of the Swimmers featured in the 1996 film The English Patient.
Authorities only became aware of the abduction on Monday when the tour group leader phoned his wife to tell her of the ransom demand.
An Egyptian security official has said the kidnappers are “most likely Chadian” after Sudan said they were Egyptians.
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