BERLIN/ROME/CAIRO: Europeans held hostage in the desert for 10 days returned home from Egypt Tuesday, with one of them reportedly calling the abductors rather kind criminals who decided on their own to free them, with confusion surrounding how exactly their ordeal ended.
Five Germans were greeted by their families and senior officials when they landed at Berlin s Tegel airport from Cairo after being released with 14 other hostages Monday, the foreign ministry said.
The hostages appeared to be in good health as they left the plane and waved to television cameras.
The state secretaries expressed their relief about the safe return of the holiday makers, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Also on board were Special Forces from the German army and members of the GSG 9 special operations unit who had been on standby to assist in the release but who in the end were not needed, Berlin said.
Five Italians also returned home safely early Tuesday to the northern Italian city of Turin. They said they had not been mistreated by their captors but that they were terrified and at one point had lost all hope of being rescued, the ANSA news agency reported.
The Europeans were part of a group of 19 hostages that also included a Romanian and eight Egyptian drivers and tour guides seized by bandits while on safari in a lawless area of Egypt s southwestern desert on Sept. 19.
The hostages were first moved across the border to Sudan to the remote mountain region of Jebel Uweinat, a plateau straddling the borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan, before the bandits took them into Chad, according to Sudanese officials.
Story Confusion
Officials in Cairo had said the hostages were then freed unharmed in a pre-dawn raid Monday by around 30 Egyptian Special Forces, with Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi claiming half of the kidnappers were eliminated in the operation.
However, German site Spiegel-Online quoted one of the hostages as disputing the Egyptian account, and a German interior ministry official made similar comments.
Egyptian security forces did not free us, said the ex-hostage named as Bernd L., 65, calling the claim complete nonsense.
After six of the bandits were killed earlier, the kidnappers decided on their own to free the hostages, and that was a big surprise for us because we thought that, now, they were going to kill us all, said the ex-hostage.
He called the kidnappers rather kind criminals who only wanted to collect a ransom.
German interior minister official August Hanning told N-TV that some of the kidnappers had been killed or captured by Sudanese security forces. The kidnappers then freed the hostages themselves.
German security sources said six kidnappers were killed and two were arrested on Sunday as they attempted to cross a roadblock without the hostages. The same sources said the kidnappers were members of local tribes.
European officials said earlier there had been little or no violence in freeing the hostages.
I say with great clarity that there was an operation that led to the release of our hostages. I never spoke of a raid, I never spoke of a violent incursion, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters Tuesday.
The release of the hostages came about through an international operation that saw our men and our special forces collaborate with the Germans, Sudanese, Egyptians, and I will add, Libyans for a brief period.
Italy s ANSA news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying that the rescue took place without bloodshed because when they were freed by Egyptian security forces the kidnappers had already left.
According to the Sudanese version of events, reported by the SUNA official news agency, the release came after kidnappers fled after fighting with Sudanese troops the previous day.
Sudanese police sources say that when Sudanese troops chased after the group as it headed towards Egypt, the hostages were abandoned.
Abdel Rahim Rajab Said, one of the Egyptian captives, also said the bandits had abandoned them, driving off in three cars and leaving them with one vehicle, the London-based Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported.
Left with a little food and water, the hostages then drove east all night until they found Egyptian forces on Monday morning, the paper cited him as saying.
Frattini denied a ransom was paid. The kidnappers had demanded Germany take charge of a ?6-million ($9-million) payment to be handed over to the German wife of the tour organizer, who was also a hostage. The ransom was original set at ?10 million but was later dropped to 6.
German officials refused to comment on this.
Khartoum says the kidnappers belong to a splinter Darfur rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Army-Unity (SLA-Unity) but an SLA-Unity spokesman denied his group s involvement.
The driver’s story
In an interview on Tuesday, one of freed Egyptian hostages said the kidnappers were mostly bored teenagers.
The kidnappers left behind an off-road vehicle, which the hostages piled into and drove to freedom, Sherif Faruq Mohamed, one of the tourists drivers, told AFP in an interview.
Contrary to the official Egyptian version of the story, Mohamed, 36, said the hostages had already been released by the bandits, whom he described as mostly children.
It was obvious they didn t have the nerve to kill us. They were children, about 15 or 16 years old, with some older men, he said, finally at home with his rejoicing family after a post-ordeal checkup.
The kidnappers started getting really bored toward the end, he said. They kept saying: where s our money so we can leave?
Mohammed said the bandits who were reported killed in a shootout with Sudanese troops on Sunday had gone to take the ransom money.
Sudanese officials said they killed six bandits and arrested two after running into them during a search operation on the border between Chad and Sudan.
We were still worried about what would happen to us when they got the money, Mohammed said. Maybe they would have left us in the desert to die.
Instead, the bandits took three of the four off-road vehicles belonging to the tour company and told the hostages they were free to leave in the remaining car, after giving them back a GPS satellite locator.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Fratinni and Egyptian officials denied a ransom had been paid. Germany has refused to comment.
Mohamed said the freed captives set off on Sunday night driving north, with some riding on the roof.
At about 2 am we came across a stretch of desert that was difficult to pass, he said. We decided to sleep, and drove off again in the morning. At about 10 am (on Monday) we came across Egyptian troops, who looked like they had been headed our way, he said.
I didn t hear any shots fired. I just heard about that when I came back, he said, referring to Egyptian government reports that Egyptian forces had killed half the bandits in a shootout.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters on Tuesday the hostages were freed without bloodshed. I never spoke of a raid, I never spoke of a violent incursion, he said, clarifying earlier remarks on Monday.
Kidnappings of foreigners are rare in Egypt, although in 2001 an armed Egyptian held four German tourists hostage for three days in Luxor, before freeing the hostages unharmed.
Bomb strikes aimed at foreigners have been more common, with attacks between 2004 and 2006 killing dozens of people in popular Red Sea resorts. -AFP
