Efforts are ongoing to free 19 people who were kidnapped at gunpoint on Friday 19 September in the remote Sahara on
Authorities only became aware of the kidnapping when the owner of the tour company which had organised the desert safari, and who is himself among the missing, used a satellite telephone to call his German wife and tell her of the ransom demand. German authorities were in touch with the group of kidnappers, believed to be desert tribesmen, who are asking for a ransom of between eight and 15 million dollars. Until Watani went to press there was no word on the progress of the contacts. No efforts have been done by any of the border countries involved to free the hostages, fearing it would endanger their lives.
The Gilf al-Kebir is a desert plateau famous for prehistoric cave paintings, including the “Cave of the Swimmers” featured in the 1996 film “The English Patient”. The region is largely uninhabited but is a crossroads for smugglers and drug traffickers, and is also accessible to people from the war-torn
Kidnappings of foreigners are extremely rare in