almotamar.net google - Up to 15 European tourists are believed to have been kidnapped in a remote desert region in northern Ethiopia.

Two tour groups - one of French citizens and another that reportedly included a Briton, an Italian and another Frenchman - went missing in the Afar region.


"A kidnapping or kidnappings did take place," Stephane Gompertz, the French ambassador to Ethiopia, said on Friday.

"It seems that the incident or incidents happened two days ago in the evening. At the moment, we don't know which group may be involved or why they have done this," he added.





The British foreign office said later on Friday after it urgently checked out reports of the kidnappings that a number of British nationals connected to government agencies were missing in Ethiopia.

"We can confirm that a group of Western tourists is missing in eastern Ethiopia including a number of British nationals with connections to the British Council, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development," the ministry said.

An official from the Origins Ethiopia tour group earlier told AFP news: "In the first convoy, there were 11 French, my guide, three drivers, a cook, two policemen.

"The other group had three British residents in Ethiopia, a cook, a guide, and two policemen."

Bandit threat

He said he had lost contact with the guide accompanying the tourists on Tuesday night.

"A driver of one of my colleagues called me yesterday to inform me that one or two of my groups have been kidnapped," he said.

Ethiopia's government said it was aware of this week's incident, but could not confirm if it was a kidnapping.

"The government is monitoring the situation," an information ministry spokesman said.

The government requires all convoys visiting the area to have a minimum of two cars and travel with armed guards because of the threat of bandits.

In 1995, nine Italian tourists were captured by Afar tribesmen, then released two weeks later.

Afar separatists began a low-level rebellion against the Addis Ababa government in the 1990s, calling for the creation of a separate Afar state on territory which straddles Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.