By Andrew Cawthorne
Monday, March 05, 2007
Several British newspapers, quoting defence sources, said London had sent a SAS special forces team to Ethiopia to help find the group which disappeared last week while visiting Afar, one of the world's most hostile environments.
The foreigners were seized near the border with Eritrea, along with 13 Ethiopians working as drivers and translators. Five Ethiopians were later found close to the frontier.
"If, as has been speculated, the group is being held against their will, it may be they have been the victims of mistaken identity," Bob Dewar, Britain's ambassador to Ethiopia, said in a statement.
He also urged anyone with information about the kidnapped group to contact the British embassy or Ethiopian authorities, who he said were leading investigations.
Asmara has denied allegations by an Ethiopian official that forces from Arat military training camp in Eritrea carried out the kidnappings.
On Sunday, Ethiopia, which has strained relations with its tiny neighbour following a 1998-2000 border war, said the identity of the kidnappers had yet to be established.
Fears for the missing travellers grew in Ethiopia's small British expatriate community as another day passed with no word of their whereabouts.
Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper said 60 troops from Britain's SAS Standby Squadron -- a rapid response team -- had arrived in Djibouti, home to a U.S.-led counter-terrorism operation.
In London, the Ministry of Defence declined to comment on reports that special forces personnel were in Ethiopia and a Foreign Office spokeswoman would not say whether Britain had sent hostage negotiators to the Horn of Africa country.
But she said the Foreign Office was in constant touch with the Ethiopian government, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
A small delegation of British embassy staff has already flown to the northern city of Mekele, which has the closest airport to the area where the Westerners went missing.
St Matthew's Church, the only Anglican place of worship in Addis Ababa, opened its doors at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) for anybody who wanted to pray for the missing.
Afar is one of Ethiopia's poorest but most visually spectacular regions, populated mostly by roaming herders who scrape a living from sheep and goats.
The area, a barren expanse of ancient salt mines and volcanoes, was the scene of a low-level rebellion against the government in the 1990s by separatists calling for an Afar state on territory straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
Source: Reuters, Mar 05, 2007