Kidnapped European tourists freed near Chad border

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Egyptian and Sudanese troops, backed by European commandos, rescued a 19-member European tour group that was kidnapped in Egypt and taken by their abductors on a 10-day dash through the Sahara Desert to the frontier of Chad. The freed tourists returned to Cairo on Monday unharmed. The tourists were plucked by troops in helicopters from a barren wilderness just inside Chad, Egyptian officials said, but details of the rescue were not clear. "They took everything from us and left us with nothing," freed Egyptian Sherif Abdel-Monem said of the kidnappers in Egyptian military footage taken on the flight to Cairo. "But they treated us well, it was not harsh treatment." Some Egyptian officials spoke of a gunbattle with the kidnappers that killed several of the gunmen, but there was no official confirmation of the reports. The brother of one of the freed Egyptians in the group said the kidnappers abandoned their captives in the desert and fled soon before the rescue operation.