Foreigners feared kidnapped in Ethiopia
Source: Reuters
By Andrew Heavens
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Two groups of tourists, including at least seven French nationals and five Britons, are believed to have been kidnapped in a remote and inhospitable area of Ethiopia where separatist rebels operate.
"A kidnapping or kidnappings did take place," French Ambassador Stephane Gompertz told Reuters.
"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," Gompertz added.
Britain said its citizens were among the missing.
"Unfortunately I can confirm that five of those are members of staff, or relatives of members of staff, at our Embassy in Addis Ababa," said British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in a statement released in London.
Ethiopian police said five Europeans and 13 Ethiopians had been kidnapped by unknown armed people in the north-east Afar region, considered one of the world's most hostile terrains.
"The 13 Ethiopians kidnapped together with the foreigners, were people of the Afar region and have been working as drivers and translators," the Ethiopian police told state television.
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.
Tour companies said the groups disappeared earlier in the week.
Initial reports said one group of missing included 10 French tourists. But later tour operators said seven French were missing. The status of the kidnapped tourists was also unclear amid conflicting reports that French tourists had been found.
"AT MOMENT THEY ARE MISSING"
"There are still seven of our clients unaccounted for. We have still not given up hope that they will turn up. But at the moment they are missing," said Samson Teshome, a manager of tour company Origins Ethiopia.
The second missing group of five people, thought to be touring the Danakil Depression, included the Britons. Expatriates also said originally the second group included a French national and an Italian but that was not clear.
One of the lowest and hottest places on earth, and a magnet to adventurous travelers, the Danakil Depression is known for volcanoes, ancient salt mines and unworldly, flat landscapes.
"Tourists have been kidnapped in the area before, but the last time was before the Ethiopian-Eritrean war," said one foreigner tracking the case, referring to a 1998-2000 border war between the Horn of Africa neighbors.
French envoy Gompertz said his mission was trying to send representatives to the largest nearby town of Mekele later on Friday or Saturday. "We are hoping to see the hostages alive and well as soon as possible," he said.
Britain's Foreign Office has a warning out on the Afar region, advising against all travel within 20 kms of the Eritrean border in the Tigray and Afar regions at any time, "which remain predominantly military zones".
The Afar area is the location of some of the earliest human remains, such as the famous 3 million year old fossilized specimen "Lucy," discovered there in 1974.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa and Paul Hughes and Adrian Croft in London and Francois Murphy in Paris)
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