CAIRO (Agencies)

Nineteen tourists and Egyptians kidnapped in the Sahara desert have been located in good health in Sudan but no rescue attempt will be made if there is a risk of harm, Egyptian and Sudanese officials said on Tuesday.

"They are now in an area of no-man's land between the Sudanese, Libyan and Egyptian border, in the area of Jebel Uweinat," Sudanese foreign ministry undersecretary Mutrief Sadiq told journalists in Khartoum.

Egyptian Tourism Minister Zuhair Garana said earlier that the group of 11 foreigners and eight Egyptians, snatched by masked gunmen on Friday while on a desert safari in Egypt's remote southwest, were in "very good health."

Egypt has sent a team to Sudan to try to secure the release of the captives, including 11 European tourists.

"Egypt has sent intelligence officers to Sudan where they are working with the Sudanese authorities to secure the hostages' release," the official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

The 11 foreigners -- five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian -- as well as eight Egyptian guides, drivers and a guard were snatched at gunpoint by masked men while on desert safari in Egypt's remote southwest on Friday.

Cairo said on Monday they had been taken into Sudan and that the authorities were "in contact with the Sudanese side to release the tourists."

Security sources said the kidnappers were demanding 6 million euros ($8.8 million) to free the hostages, identified as five Italians, five Germans, a Romanian and eight Egyptians.

They said there was no sign militant Islamists were involved.

Unconfirmed reports say they have threatened the hostages with death if there is military intervention to free them.

"They have been kidnapped and they have been moved outside the Egyptian borders by four criminals who have kidnapped them," Tourism Minister Zoheir Garrana told Reuters. "This is a gang act (by) masked men."

Held in Sudan

Authorities only became aware of the kidnapping when the tour company owner, who is among the missing, used a satellite telephone to call his German wife and tell her of the ransom demand and that they had been kidnapped by five masked men speaking English "with an African accent" very close to the Sudan border, MENA reported.

Garrana said the group was being held in the Karkuk Talh, just across the border in Sudan, having started their safari near Gilf el-Kabir, a rugged and largely uninhabited region on the border with Sudan.

A spokesman for Sudan's Northern State, which borders Egypt and Libya to the north and west and the war-torn Darfur region to the south, told AFP that "until now we have no information about this" abduction.

Rebels from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, which lies less than 300 kilometers (190 miles) south of the Egypt-Sudan border, were quick to deny involvement.

The area of the kidnapping is a desert plateau famous for prehistoric cave paintings, including the "Cave of the Swimmers" featured in the 1996 film "The English Patient.

Attacks against foreigners

Kidnappings of foreigners are rare in Egypt, although in 2001 an armed Egyptian held four German tourists hostage for three days in Luxor, demanding his estranged wife brings his two sons back from Germany. He freed the hostages unharmed.

Egypt has, however, witnessed a number of deadly attacks against foreigners which have been blamed on al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants.

The most recent attacks occurred between 2004 and 2006 in popular Red Sea resorts.

In April 2006, 20 people were killed in bomb blasts in Dahab; in July 2005, 70 were killed in Sharm el-Sheikh; and in October 2004, 34 people were killed in Taba.

In November 1997, 62 people -- among them 58 foreign holidaymakers -- were killed in an attack on a popular tourist site in the southern Nile resort of Luxor. The attack was claimed by the Islamist group Jammaa Islamiyya.

More and more foreign visitors are visiting the remote southwest of Egypt near its borders with Sudan and Libya to see the prehistoric rock art preserved for millennia in one of the most isolated reaches of the Sahara.