Hostage drama ends with desert drive to safety

Policeman kicked in face
The only person physically mistreated was the Egyptian policeman escorting the group — a requirement for any tour group going to the Gilf, though the policeman was unarmed. "They kicked him in the face when they learned that he was a security man," Mohammed said.

Abdel-Hakim said the kidnappers were ethnic Africans — apparently Muslim because they prayed and observed the Ramadan fast — and they spoke their own language, talking to the Egyptians in broken Arabic.

"Some of them were wearing khaki, others in robes, but all of them in something like turbans," he said.

One Italian, Mirella De Giuli, told the ANSA news agency there were as many as 40 kidnappers, some of whom looked as young as 15.

The Egyptian captives, most of whom were also fasting, prepared two meals a day for the Europeans from the tour group's supplies — bread and cheese in the morning, pasta and potatoes after sunset — trying to minimize interaction between gunmen and tourists, Abdel-Hakim said.

At one point a sandstorm blew for three days, forcing them to stop, and the tourists remained inside the vehicles for shelter.

Throughout, German authorities were negotiating by satellite phone with the kidnappers, who were demanding up to $15 million in ransom. Germany has refused any comment, but Egyptian, German and Italian officials said no ransom was paid.

'We thought we were going to die'
On Sunday morning, Sudanese troops encountered eight of the kidnappers, apparently sent to get fuel and food. In a gunbattle, six of the gunmen were killed and two captured, Egyptian and Sudanese officials said. The two said the rest of the gunmen and their captives were at a site just on the Chad-Sudan border, the officials said.

That day, the hostages saw their captors get a satellite phone call, apparently telling them about the gunbattle, though it's not known who made the call. That is when the gunmen told the Egyptian guides and drivers to line up.

"We were terrified because we never knew what they would do to us in retaliation," Abdel-Hakim said.

But abruptly, the gunmen "just shouted 'go, go, go!' and they packed all of us in one car, allowing us to drive away," Italian tourist Walter Barotto told SKY TG24 television.

They drove from 8 p.m. Sunday to 11 a.m. Monday, across unfamiliar desert at night. Thankfully, Abdel-Hakim said, they had been left their Global Positioning System to navigate. Finally, they crossed the Egyptian border.

The freed tourists say they don't know why their captors abruptly let them go.

"We were thought we were going to die every day 10 times a day," Abdel-Hakim said.

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