CAIRO: Eleven tourists and eight Egyptians were kidnapped by a masked gang in Karkur Talh in the remote southern area of Gilf El-Kabir near the Sudanese border, officials announced Monday. In an official statement, the Egyptian Ministry of Information said that the group was embarking on a safari trip in the area, which lies between the Egyptian, Sudanese and Libyan borders. Those abducted include five Germans, five Italians (three women and two men) and a Romanian. Of the eight Egyptians, four were drivers, two were tour guides, one was a border guard and the final one was the owner of the travel company organizing the safari. They were traveling in four cars. According to sources in the tourism industry who spoke to Daily News Egypt on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, the kidnapping took place on Friday. This information was verified by other media reports claiming that news of the kidnapping was made known through the travel company owner, who contacted his German wife twice on Saturday. Contact has since been cut off, according to Egypt's Tourism Minister Zoheir Garranah. Reports also indicate that the assailants appear to hail from either Sudan or Chad. Other unconfirmed reports claim that the kidnappers have taken the hostages across the border into Sudan as they await a ransom, $15 million according to the tourism industry source. The source also told Daily News Egypt that it was "99 percent sure that the travel company in charge of the safari was the Egypt Travco group, and that its owner, Hamed El Chiaty, was the one of those abducted. However, Yara Salib, director of marketing and public relations at Travco, denied these allegations to Daily News Egypt. She said that their company was neither in charge of the safari nor was El Chiaty abducted. This is not the first kidnapping case in that area. In February 2008, a group of German travelers were kidnapped there by the Darfur rebel group the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) after mistakenly venturing into Sudanese territory. According to a blog post by one of the travellers Carlo Bergmann (on carlo-bergmann.de) he and his travel companion Philipp Moore were released 10 days later, but declined to inform Egyptian authorities of the incident, fearing interminable delay and lengthy interrogations. However, the SLA has denied involvement in the recent kidnapping. A spokesman for the group in London, Mahgoub Hussein, said, "We are not part of this, because it is a criminal act to target tourists like this. This is a bandit act. We are fighting against the government, not against tourists. Initial media reports had claimed that there were two Israelis in the group but this was later dismissed. Other reports claimed that two of the kidnapped Germans also carried Israeli citizenship. The Israeli embassy in Cairo told Daily News Egypt that they had no reason to believe there were any Israelis in the group. Travel writer and author of "Egypt Rediscovered Mohammed El-Hebeishy told Daily News Egypt that Gilf El-Kabir, which is approximately the size of Switzerland, was not an area for the run of the mill tourist, but a spot for avid desert safari enthusiasts. According to El-Hebeishy in pre-civilization times it was a plateau covered with prehistoric rock art. The plateau is at an elevation of 1,100 meters above sea-level.
