Cairo - Nineteen people kidnapped by an unknown group of masked men on September 19 in the Egyptian Western Desert have now been transferred to Libya, the Arab satellite broadcaster al-Arabiya reported on Thursday.

A spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry told the channel that the group, which includes five Germans, five Italians and one Romanian tourist, had been brought across the Libyan border.

The group were previously thought to be at a location 25 kilometres inside Sudan after having been snatched near the Gilf Kebir region in the Egyptian desert.

Sudanese Foreign Ministry official Ali Youssef had said on Thursday that government forces had sealed off the village where the kidnappers were thought to be hiding. (dpa)