Bedouins free Hungarian in Sinai

Armed Bedouin tribesman have freed a Hungarian peacekeeper in Egypt’s northern Sinai, having briefly kidnapped him on Thursday. The Bedouin set the soldier free after tribal leaders intervened, and the kidnappers had not realised they were capturing a member of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) stationed in the peninsula, the police said. The MFO confirmed in a statement that one if its officers had been released after being held briefly. The kidnappers, armed with machine-guns, had stopped a chartered bus heading from the peacekeepers' camp to Cairo, the mission said on its website. Dozens of people meanwhile blocked a road using stones and burnt tires between Qantara and Arisha. The MFO comprises contingents from 13 countries in camps near Egypt's border with Israel, from where it monitors the observance of a 1979 peace treaty between the two countries. Bedouins had kidnapped an Israeli and a Norwegian tourist last month in the south of the peninsula, which is dotted with beach resorts, to press for the release of jailed relatives.