Egypt’s hostages back home amid doubts over raid

A EUROPEAN tour group kidnapped in the Sahara Desert was abruptly freed after a phone call to one of the captors, and all 19 hostages piled into a single car, some clinging to the roof as they drove 200 miles to safety.

The accounts yesterday by the freed Europeans and their Egyptian guides contradicted reports from Egyptian security officials who described a dramatic rescue involving gun battles between Egyptian forces and the hostages, with state news agency quoting the defence minister that half the kidnappers had been killed.

As their captivity dragged into its tenth night, one of their captors received a phone call, the Egyptian drivers said from the hospital.

“They told all the Egyptians to stand in one line and they cocked their weapons, and at that moment we thought we were dead,” Hassan Abdel Hakim, 45, said. “Suddenly the man told us to take one car and leave — there were 19 of us packed into one car, some on the roof.

“We left everything, we didn’t even have room for a spare tire. We only had a GPS to go in the right direction until we met the Egyptian special forces,” he said.

Michele Barrera, a 71-year-old Italian who was among the group, confirmed the drivers’ account. “It was nothing dramatic, they just shouted ‘go!’ and they packed all of us in one car, allowing us to drive away,” he said.

The car started off at 8.00pm and drove through the night some 200 miles before being found by what were initially hostile Egyptian security forces, said Sherif Farouq Mohammed, a driver.

“They pointed their weapons at us and we were waving our hands trying to tell them that we are the hostages,” he said.

The five Italians and five Germans, as well as a Romanian living in Germany, were back in their home countries yesterday, after being kidnapped with eight Egyptian guides and drivers on September 19.

Abdel Hakim said the kidnappers were ethnic Africans and spoke their own language, talking to the Egyptians in broken Arabic. He added they appeared to be Muslims, praying and fasting during the month of Ramadan.