Ethiopia official says tourists held by Eritreans

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Ethiopia official says tourists held by Eritreans

Sat Mar 3, 2007 11:40 AM ET



By Andrew Heavens

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - An Ethiopian administrator accused Eritrean forces on Saturday of kidnapping a group of five Europeans and 13 Ethiopians in a remote part of Ethiopia, and taking them to a military camp in neighboring Eritrea.

A group of five Britons, believed to include diplomats from the British embassy in Addis Ababa, went missing on Thursday in a remote, inhospitable area of the Horn of Africa nation.

"They were taken to Wema district of Asab Province in Eritrea. This has been confirmed by two Ethiopians of Afar origin who have been left behind," Ismael Ali Sero, the head of the Afar administrative region, told Reuters by telephone.

"We have confirmation that the commandos came from Arat military training camp inside Eritrea. They torched four vehicles and two homes before they left with the group."

There was no immediate comment from the Ethiopian or Eritrean governments.

Britain on Saturday sent a six-strong team of senior Foreign Office officials to Ethiopia to step up diplomatic efforts to free the foreigners. British officials said five of the missing were staff from the embassy in Addis Ababa or relatives of members of staff.

A separate group of seven French tourists also went missing on Thursday but the head of the tour company that organized their trip said they were safe. A French diplomat was unable to confirm the report, saying Paris had not yet made direct contact with them.

HOSTILE TERRAIN

A small delegation of British embassy staff flew to the city of Mekele in the north of the country, which has the closest airport to the area where the Westerners went missing, expatriate sources said.

Foreign Office officials in London declined to say whether hostage negotiators were among the team sent to Ethiopia.

Tour companies said the groups disappeared while visiting the northeast Afar region, considered one of the world's most hostile terrains. The missing Ethiopians were people from the Afar region and were working as drivers and translators.

Afar, one of Ethiopia's poorest regions, was also the site of a low-level rebellion against the government in the 1990s by separatists calling for an Afar state on territory straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

Samson Hailu, head of Origin Ethiopia Tour Agency which organized the trip for the French tourists, told Reuters the agency had lost communication with the group for a short while.

"We had communication difficulty and we did not know their whereabouts. I have just received a telephone message from the tour guide," Hailu said. They ... are expected in Addis Ababa on Sunday."

He said there was another group of 10 members of French film crew who entered Ethiopia from Djibouti and were safe and were also making their way to the Ethiopian capital.

Ethiopian government sources said efforts had been intensified to find the tourists and 13 Ethiopians who police say were kidnapped on Thursday night at a camp by armed people.

"There is an intensive search going on for the Europeans and their Ethiopian crew by our security forces in the regions near where they were kidnapped," the source said.

(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse and Katherine Baldwin in London)
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"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.