Hostage Crisis Enters Critical Stage

German media on Tuesday reported that Michaela Spitzer, a 45 year-old mother of two, died a few weeks ago of heatstroke. She had been held for nearly five months in harsh conditions in the southern Sahara desert by Algerian Islamic extremists thought to be part of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

She and 31 other European tourists were kidnapped in separate incidents late February and early March while touring southern Algeria. Seventeen hostages were freed in May when Algerian troops attacked a desert rebel hideout killing several kidnappers in the process.

Since then there has been little news of the remaining hostages until the latest reports of Spitzer’s death. On Wednesday, Malian daily L'Independant said the kidnappers sent a videotape to Malian authorities, showing the hostages are in the country. The paper said the tape was sent on July 28 to top Malian government officials, including President Amadou Toumani Toure.

The German government now believes the rebels have decamped across the border to northern Mali. According to German ARD television, security officials say the affair has now entered a “dynamic” phase, as they look to gain the release of the nine Germans, four Swiss and one Dutchman still being held.

Safe passage to Mail?

Several reports from the region say the kidnappers have accepted an offer of safe passage to Mali in exchange for freeing the tourists. But the Mali government has yet to officially confirm the rebels had crossed over from Algeria.

"We are not denying nor confirming anything. We all want to get the hostages freed, all the work the state is doing is aimed at preserving the lives of the hostages," a senior official at Mali's ministry for territorial administration told Reuters. "We have mobilized all the elements we have in the region."

According to the Algerian newspaper El Watan, an estimated 25 armed rebels have taken the remaining hostages on a brutal 1,200 kilometer journey through parts of the Sahara where temperatures often exceed 50 degrees centigrade to reach Mali.

The German Foreign Ministry, which has come under criticism in the media for withholding information about the hostage situation, has refused to confirm the latest reports. “This is about people’s lives. The government is doing all it can to help those involved in this difficult situation,” a ministry spokesman said.

The rebels from the GSPC and the Armed Islamist Group (GIA), have been fighting a vicious war against Algerian authorities to create a radical Islamist state which has resulted in more than 100,000 deaths.