German police were preparing yesterday to join a hunt in Algeria's southern Sahara desert for about 30 European tourists, including 15 Germans, some missing without trace since February.
The reinforcements came as Algerian police drew a blank about the fate of the tourists, who went missing in a huge expanse of desert frequented by smugglers, drug-runners and a militant group linked to the al-Qaeda network.
A German foreign ministry spokeswoman, meanwhile, said, "We're following every development."
Some local press reports suggested the tourists, who were travelling in at least five separate groups, have been kidnapped, while others said that US military operations in Iraq may have interfered with the travellers' satellite navigation systems.
Helicopters have been combing the two million sq km desert area bordering Libya and Niger in search of the tourists, who include 15 Germans, at least eight Austrians, four Swiss, and a Dutchman.
According to some reports, a Swedish national is also missing.
At the weekend, security personnel scoured the Illizi area, 1,500 km south-east of Algiers, near the Libyan border.
Three groups of European tourists - six Germans, four Swiss and one Dutch - went missing in south-eastern Algeria on February 21st, near the border with Niger and Libya.
Contact was lost on March 17th with another group of six Germans, four men and two women, who were touring the southern Algerian desert in three four-wheel-drive vehicles.
The Austrian foreign ministry said Friday it believed between eight and 12 Austrians had disappeared in the same part of Algeria, as their families had "not heard from them for several days."
The tourists are understood to have been travelling in four-wheel drive vehicles or on motorbikes, and had arrived in Algeria from Tunisia to avoid northern danger zones where armed Islamic extremists, who launched Algeria's civil war in 1992, are known to operate.
Although the region the tourists were travelling in has largely been spared the fundamentalist violence that has swept other parts of Algeria in the last decade, a fundamentalist group is known to operate in the southern desert.
That group is led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who some years ago threatened the annual Paris-Dakar car rally, forcing it to change its planned route. - (AFP)