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Five Germans who spent 10 days as hostages along with 14 others returned to Berlin from Egypt on Tuesday a day after their liberation, the German Foreign Ministry said.
The five were greeted by their families and by senior government officials from the after landing at Berlin Tegel airport, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
They were part of a group of 19 hostages that also included five Italians, a Romanian and eight Egyptian drivers and tour guides seized by bandits in a lawless area of Egypts southwestern desert on September 19.
Egyptian Defence Minister Hussein Tantawi said half of the kidnappers were eliminated in the raid, the official MENA news agency reported, although this was disputed by other sources who said there had been little or no violence.
They were freed unharmed in a pre-dawn raid by Egyptian special forces on Monday, according to officials in Egypt. There was a gunfight during which half the around 35 kidnappers were killed and the rest escaped, he said. Just before dawn two helicopters flew in special forces from the elite Lightning Brigade who freed the hostages, an Egyptian security official told them, asking not to be named.
About 150 Egyptian special forces had been sent to Sudan, he said, where Italian and German special forces were also on standby, with about 30 Egyptian special forces carrying out the operation.
The kidnappers were thrown into confusion by the fighting the previous day with the Sudanese army and fled.
However, a European source cast doubt on the Egyptian version, saying that the operation appeared to be more of a recovery than a raid involving fighting.
The source was referring to a shootout on Sunday during which Sudanese forces shot dead six kidnappers and arrested two as they were driving through the Sudanese desert without the hostages. Maybe one or two shots were fired, the source said, asking not to be named. German special forces intervention was not necessary because the kidnappers let their hostages go and fled when they saw signs of an imminent liberation by the force, the newspaper said in its edition due out on Tuesday.
German daily Bild reported that German troops had been standing by to act but did not do so because the kidnappers had already freed the hostages.
Italys ANSA news agency also quoted an unnamed official as saying that the rescue took place without bloodshed because when they were freed by Egyptian security forces the kidnappers had already left.
Italys ANSA news agency also quoted an unnamed official as saying that the rescue took place without bloodshed because when they were freed by Egyptian security forces the kidnappers had already left. We cannot yet relate the dynamics of the release but we can deny with certainty the payment of any ransom, Frattini said on Italian television from Belgrade.
The kidnapperswhose identities remain unknownhad demanded a ransom but Italys Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said no money had been paid and that Italian special forces had also been involved.
The problem was solved.
The releases came after an Egyptian security official said the kidnappers had agreed to let their captives go in return for a ransom, in a deal hammered out before the shootout with Sudanese troops. It was merely a matter of receiving the hostages, but then this surprise happened, the official told them, referring to the shooting. They had agreed to the ransom. .
The kidnappers had demanded that Germany take charge of payment of a 6-million ransom to be handed over to the German wife of the tour organiser, one of those snatched. An SLA-Unity spokesperson denied his groups involvement.
Sudan says the kidnappers belong to a splinter Darfur rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Army-Unity SLA-Unity.
Bomb strikes aimed at foreigners have been more common, with attacks between 2004 and 2006 killing dozens of people in popular Red Sea resorts.
Bomb strikes aimed at foreigners have been more common, with attacks between 2004 and 2006 killing dozens of people in popular Red Sea resorts.
