Bedouin kidnap cement industry workers, Egypt

Egyptian Bedouin kidnapped 25 cement factory workers in Sinai on Tuesday, demanding authorities free fellow tribesmen from prison, sources from the tribe said.

Daily News Egypt reported one of the Bedouin as saying: "We will not release the Chinese until our demand for the release of these sons of Sinai are met."

The workers, who are reported to be mostly Chinese, were kidnapped on their way to a Sinai Cement plant and were being held in a tent near a road that the Bedouin had blocked for the past three days to press their demand, the sources said.

They said their jailed tribesmen were arrested between 2004 and 2006 as part of an investigation into bombings at the Taba resort on Sinai's Red Sea coast in which 31 people were killed.