Crisis team due in Ethiopia after tourists kidnapped

Britain was sending a 10-man crisis team to Ethiopia today after at least a dozen Western tourists were kidnapped in remote north-eastern Ethiopia, a barren expanse of volcanoes and ancient salt mines where bandits and rebels operate.

Ethiopian state media confirmed the kidnapping last night and said 13 Ethiopians were also missing.

The tourists – between seven and 10 French in one group and five British citizens in another – were seized on Thursday in Dalol, 500 miles northeast of Addis Ababa, according to a businessman and a tour operator who work in the area. They asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said a crisis team was to arrive today.

The BBC, quoting unidentified government sources, said there was a “national security dimension” to the disappearance.

As required by the Ethiopian government, the tour groups were travelling in the Afar region with armed guards. The region is not heavily travelled because it is so remote, but the other-worldly landscape draws adventure travellers.

Dominique Gautier, spokesman for the French Embassy in Addis Ababa, arrived Friday in Mekele, the regional capital of the Afar region, but said he had no details.

A French television crew that was also travelling in the area and whose members had been out of touch turned up safe in Mekele on Friday, but they were not among the missing tourists, said Samson Teshome, head of Origins Ethiopia, a new tour agency specialising in Afar. The missing Westerners were also believed to be clients of Origins, but company officials would not comment on that.

Bandits and a small Afar rebel group operate in the Afar region, which is known for its difficult terrain and roasting heat. The average annual temperature is 34C, but the mercury often soars much higher. The area is where the famous Ethiopian fossil of Lucy was discovered in 1974.

In 1995, rebels from the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front kidnapped Italian tourists, but released them weeks later. The Arduf has been fighting for years against Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea over lands inhabited by ethnic Afar.

The tour o in Afar, and company officials told him that they have been unable to contact the tourists.

The tourists left Mekele on Sunday for a two-day drive to Hamedali, a remote village that is the last staging post before visiting the salt lakes, the operator said. Then they went on a two-hour drive to Dalol to visit the salt mines and were supposed to return to Hamedali.