By Lee Tae-hoon
Three Koreans kidnapped by armed men on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, were freed without injury Friday, some 29 hours after being taken hostage, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
They confirmed an Egyptian tour guide was also freed after being abducted from a tour bus carrying him and 29 Koreans about 30 kilometers from the St. Catherine Monastery in the southern part of the peninsula.
The three Koreans, indentified as Pastor Lee Min-song, 53, Lee Jong-dal, 62, and Mo Jong-mun, 59, safely returned to the Catherine Plaza Hotel Catherine in St. Catherine at around 9:40 p.m. Saturday.
Mo, one of the captives, said he and other abductees were treated well by the kidnappers.
“They did not hit us or insult us,” he said. “They said they were fighting against the Egyptian government and then apologized to us for the abduction.”
The pastor thanked the Korean government for its efforts to release him and the two other Korean Christians, who were on a 10-day pilgrimage to Egypt, Israel and Jordan.
“I heard that we would soon be freed as negotiations went well,” he said. The Korean government had asked Cairo to help win the release of the captives immediately after their abduction, and the Sinai governor had contacted a tribal chief asking for their release.
A group of Bedouins kidnapped the three Koreans and their guide when their tour bus stopped for a break in the middle of the desert in an attempt to pressure the Egyptian government to release a prisoner.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), however, declined to comment on whether Egyptian authorities complied with the captors’ demand for the release of a 29-year-old man recently arrested for an armed robbery at a bank in exchange for freeing the hostages.
Egyptian security officials and tribal elders reportedly negotiated the release of the four with their captor, Ali Dikheil, who had allegedly been imprisoned for drug and weapons crimes but broke out during the popular uprising that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February last year.
Korean Ambassador to Egypt Yoon Jong-gon also declined to comment on the details of the negotiations between the Egyptian government and the tribesmen.
However, another Korean diplomat said, “To my understanding, the Egyptian government agreed to positively consider the release of the detained Bedouin on condition that the Korean captives were released.”
MOFAT raised its travel alert warning for the Sinai Peninsula from level two to three, one notch shy of a full travel ban.
Currently, Korea has imposed a full travel ban on five countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
MOFAT has listed regions in 34 countries, including towns near the nuclear power plant in the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, as level three travel restriction areas.
Kidnappings of foreigners have taken place in Egypt in recent months amid civil demonstrations and political uncertainty after the fall of the authoritarian Mubarak regime last year.
Two American women and their Egyptian guide were abducted by armed Bedouins on the same peninsula last week.