ETHIOPIA: FILE: Britain sends six-strong team to help free tourists feared kidnapped in Ethiopian desert

Record ID: 725756

  • Title: ETHIOPIA: FILE: Britain sends six-strong team to help free tourists feared kidnapped in Ethiopian desert
  • Date: 3rd March 2007
  • Summary: (W3) ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (NOVEMBER 08,2005) (REUTERS) STREET SCENE WITH BUSES AND TAXIS IN STREETS; PEOPLE WALKING PEOPLE WALKING IN STREET SOLDIERS WALKING IN THE STREET SOLDIER WATCHING FROM TOP OF VEHICLE
  • Embargoed: 18th March 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ethiopia
  • Country: Ethiopia
  • Reuters ID: LVA8X6I95CAPTQWTYYEY4KX0NMZ2
  • Story Text: British officials said five of those missing in an inhospitable area where separatist rebels operate were staff from the embassy in Addis Ababa or relatives of members of staff. A member of the team sent to Addis Ababa early on Saturday (March 3) who did not want to be identified, said they had arrived to help diplomats at the British embassy.
    An additional group of at least seven French nationals that had been feared missing were reported to have made contact with the tour company that organised their trip, the head of the tour agency said on Saturday.
    Samson Hailu, the head of Origin Ethiopia Tour Agency told Reuters that seven people had arrived at Artale Volcano site. He said they had communication difficulties and their whereabouts had not been known but that he had received a telephone message from the tour guide. They had cut their visit and were expected in Addis Ababa on Sunday (March 4).
    A small delegation of British embassy staff have already flown to the city of Mekele in the north of the country, the closest airport to the area where the Britons went missing, expatriate sources said.
    Foreign Office officials in London declined to say whether hostage negotiators were among the team sent to Ethiopia.
    France's ambassador to Ethiopia, Stephane Gompertz, said on Friday his embassy was trying to send representatives to Mekele later on Friday or on Saturday. 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.
    The source said that an intensive search was under way for the Europeans and their Ethiopian crew in the regions near where they were kidnapped.
    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 is one of Ethiopia's poorest regions, populated mostly by roaming herders who scrape a living with sheep and goats.
    It 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.
    Scientists working in the region in 1996 discovered the fossils of a new species of humans dating back 2.5 million years.
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