An Egyptian tour guide has taken four foreign female tourists hostage, security sources said on Tuesday.
An Egyptian tour guide has taken four German tourists hostage in southern Egypt to try to use them as bargaining chips in a child-custody dispute with his German wife, Egypt's interior ministry said.
A ministry statement named those held as Mr Marco Vidkind, Mr Ralph Laver, Mr Kristof Paning and Mr Peter Nowotnick.
On March 12th, the German embassy received a telephone call from Ibrahim Ali, in which he said that he had kidnapped four German tourists in Luxor and threatened not to release them until he can see his children Kerim, seven, and Rami, three, who are in Germany with his German wife, it said.
The man, a guide in the southern tourist resort of Luxor, abducted the four men, earlier reported to be women, on Monday, security sources said. They said the hostages were being held in the town of Esna, south of Luxor.
Diplomatic sources said the German foreign ministry in Berlin had formed a special negotiating team to work for the hostages' release. The German embassy declined to comment.
This was the first security incident involving foreign tourists in Egypt since Muslim militants killed 58 foreign visitors in Luxor in November 1997.