Sudan forces kill six kidnappers, arrest two

Sudanese forces have killed six kidnappers who had abducted 19 tourists and Egyptians in a remote desert nine days ago, and arrested two, in a gun battle after a high-speed chase near the Egyptian border, Sudanese presidential advisor Mahjoub Fadl Badri told reporters on Sunday.

"Sudanese forces followed the tracks of the kidnappers from Jebel Oweinat, a range on the Sudan-Libya-Egypt border, and found them on the Chad border," he said.

"Sudanese forces killed six and arrested two, including the commander of a Darfur rebel group," he said, adding that the hostages were currently in Chad under the protection of 30 armed men.

"What the (captured) kidnappers say is that the hostages are still in Chad, they put them in a hideout and are still negotiating about them, but we have no details whether the Chadian army has moved in," he said.

The hostages includee 11 tourists - five Italians, five Germans, and one Romanian - plus eight Egyptians - two guides, four drivers, a guard and the organizer of the tour group.

The kidnappers have demanded that Germany take charge of payment of a six-million-euro ransom, an Egyptian security official told reporters on Thursday.

Germany has kept quiet about its role in any negotiations, saying only that it has set up a crisis team.

The group, seized by gunmen in southern Egypt while on a safari, was moved across the border to Sudan to the remote mountain region of Jebel Oweinat, a 1,900-metre-high plateau that straddles the borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan.

On Thursday the kidnappers were reported to have moved some 13 to 15 kilometers across the border into Libya, although officials there later denied this had happened.

There are conflicting reports about the nationality of the hostage-takers, with different sources saying they were from Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Chad or even Djibouti.