Cairo  - Eleven tourists kidnapped during a safari trip in southern Egypt and apparently kidnapped when they strayed over the Sudanese border were freed and heading towards Aswan, an unconfirmed report said Monday.

A local authority spokesperson in the region, who declined to be identified, said the tourists from Germany, Italy and Romania - along with eight Egyptian safari staff - had been attacked at the weekend.

However, they had been released by Sudanese captors and were heading Monday for Aswan, the unidentified source said. The report was not immediately confirmed officially.

Egyptian authorities had earlier said negotiations were going ahead with a band of abductors demanding a ransom.

As further details emerged, it became apparent that the kidnapping of the 19-member group took place last Friday evening, but only became public on Monday.

Reports in Cairo cited police as saying four masked men assaulted the safari group while it was travelling in Egypt's deep south, near the border with Sudan. The foreign kidnap victims included five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian.

In addition, eight Egyptians were seized, including two tour guides, four drivers, the owner of the tiny travel agency which organized the safari, and an army officer serving as a guard, the Egyptian Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.

MENA said the group was travelling in four offroad vehicles in the Kark Talh area near the Sudanese-Egyptian border.

Reports said that Egyptian officials only first became aware of the kidnapping when the owner of the travel agency told his wife by telephone of the incident.

The kidnappers are suspected to be Sudanese from Darfur, the German wife of the kidnapped owner of the agency was quoted in al- Arabiya news satellite channel as saying.

Based on a telephone call with her kidnapped husband early Saturday, the wife said that kidnappers were not part of any organized terrorist group but only seek a ransom.

Contacts between the couples have been cut off since Saturday evening.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Zuheir Garana was quoted in media reports as saying that negotiations with the kidnappers were under way. He said a ransom demand had been made.

Garana however said that negotiations with the kidnappers were being conducted via the tourism company which organized the safari trip for the group.

In Berlin, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that the foreigners had been missing since Friday, and said a crisis staff had been set up by the ministry.

The Italian Foreign Ministry also confirmed it had been informed, saying Foreign Minister Franco Frattini was monitoring the situation closely and had "given instructions to maintain close contact with other foreign ministries involved and with the relevant diplomatic and consular services."

According to Italian official sources, the Italians abducted included three women and two men from city of Turin.

Egypt's tourism sector has been hit in the past by Islamic attacks in the 1990s and then terror bombings in the Sinai. But the safari kidnapping incident is the first to involve foreigners being seized in the desert.

Garana and security officials, once the kidnapping had become public, were quick to stress that "the kidnappers are not terrorists, but common criminals."

Garana was evidently hoping to counter any worries about renewed Islamic attacks on the tourism sector which could result in travellers cancelling their trips to Egypt. (dpa)