Kidnapped Britons Reported Safe

A group of British nationals kidnapped in a remote part of northern Ethiopia more than a week ago are "safe and secure", Ethiopia's foreign minister said today.

"Last evening, I heard that they are safe and secure. They are in good condition," Seyoum Mesfin told reporters in Ethiopia's Afar region, near where the group was abducted. He said he did not know who was holding them.

The minister was speaking after a regional community leader said the group, kidnapped by an armed band eight days ago, were safe and being held by Afar separatists over the border in Eritrea.

"They are unharmed and safe and in Weima in Eritrea," Ismael Ali Gardo from the Afar Pastoralists Development Association told the Reuters news agency, saying the information had been passed to him by nomadic herders in the region.

The captors were from the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, Mr Ismael said, a group that emerged in the 1990s to seek more autonomy for the Afar region, which includes parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

"They will not want to harm them. They are in Eritrea but the people who took them were from Afar," he added.

The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said the government had also been informed the captives were safe.

"We have heard that there are people who are saying the hostages are OK. Obviously, the issue of where they are is something that has to be looked at," she said at a press conference for the EU summit in Brussels, standing alongside the prime minister.

Originally, the Foreign Office said five Britons, two men and three women, had been held. It said the group, who cannot be named due to a government reporting restriction, were members of staff from the British embassy in Addis Ababa, relatives of diplomats, or officials from the Department for International Development.

However, today the department said the group instead comprised three Britons, one person with joint Italian/British nationality and one French national.

Tony Blair's official spokesman said the government was still trying to "establish the facts" concerning the reports.

"It is important that we take this very carefully for the sake of all those involved," he added.

The group had been travelling through Afar, popular with European adventure tourists, when they were taken by an armed gang from their compound in Hamedela, a small village just south of the Eritrean border. Their local drivers, translators and guides were also kidnapped.

Earlier this week, the tour group's vehicles, including a Toyota Landcruiser and Land Rover Discovery, were discovered riddled with bullet holes and partly burned out. According to reports, the kidnappers sabotaged the empty vehicles to stop them being used in a chase.

On Tuesday, Ethiopian police and army officers leading the hunt for the captives said they appeared to have been taken into Eritrea, adding that Afar separatists were suspected of involvement.

An Ethiopian army commander, Gebremarian Hadush, said on Tuesday that the hostages were being held in Wiema, across the frontier, most likely by the separatists.

"They work together with the Eritreans. They must have done this together," he said.

Eritrea has already vehemently rejected accusations of its involvement in the kidnapping of the group, calling it "crazy".

Efforts to locate and free the Britons have been hampered by the lack of cooperation between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which fought a border war seven years ago and maintain a heavy military presence on their border.