The hostage drama in the Sahara, part 1

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The hostage drama in the Sahara, part 1
Brings

to travel

The hostage drama in the Sahara, part 1

The hostage drama in the Sahara, part 1
The nightmare

The Sahara driver Rainer Bracht and 31 other hostages were held by Algerian terrorists for 177 days. At home, his wife Petra experienced one of the most spectacular search and rescue operations in post-war history. In a multi-part report, MOTORRAD is now publishing the recordings of the two. What actually happens when a motorcycle vacation turns into an inferno??

Annette Johann

10/22/2003

Petra: Tomorrow is Sunday March 9th, Rainer’s birthday. I’m slowly becoming very uneasy. For a week from Rainer and the other three boys no sign of life from Algeria. On the 7th they wanted to be on the ferry. Something is wrong. Christian’s friend Esther called yesterday, completely excited. Christian was already overdue for a week. I reassured her that he would certainly have stayed longer with Rainer, Martin and Arjen. But Rainer would have reported from Tunis or Genoa at the latest! He called frequently from this tour. Said I miss him. Usually we always travel together, but this time I’m not there because of an operation. On his penultimate call from Djanet, he raved about the beautiful dune passage, told how well everything was going, the mopeds, the tour. He also reported from Illizi that they had given up the planned route via Tarat or the Qued Imirhou ?? the Tarat-Ostroute is just an unattractive jumble slope and the Qued is impassable after heavy rains. That’s why tomorrow I’m going to the graves slope. How I would love to be there! I fell so much in love with this landscape on a previous trip to Africa, the red sand with the black stones and green bushes. And then he said that he was calling again from Tunisia! And would never go on vacation without me, because that would somehow be nothing! Thank you, Rainer. I am happy that he misses me! Arjens friend Marten rings through the doorbell. Where was Arjen? That night I call the emergency number of the embassy in Algiers. Everything in me is full of fear! I feel that something has happened. Petra Bracht instinctively suspects that Rainer can no longer call. However, she does not know that he has been held by militant Islamists for two weeks. About 24 hours after the call from Illizi, the vacation of the four desert drivers came to an end in one fell swoop. Rainer: It is the evening of February 23rd. We camp just before the Ain el Hadjadj fountain in the dunes. Suddenly enduros can be heard. Actually strange, since normally nobody drives in the twilight. I look carefully and discover a convoy on the grave runway. Several pick-ups with machine guns attached, a red Toyota Hiace and three enduros. On the back, long-bearded passengers with Kalashnikovs slung around their necks. Does not look good. As I turn around, I see my passengers standing on a dune, visible from afar. Damn! The convoy promptly turns in our direction, the armed men are grouped around us. Strangely enough, I’m not afraid. If they were fundamentalists from the GIA, they would not have taken the others with them, they would have murdered them straight away. It turns out they belong to a Salafist preaching and fighting group, GSPC. We have nothing to fear, they assert. As soon as a few “little things” were settled, we could leave again. But first we have to come with you. We pack up and start with a guard on the motorcycle after a short stretch of grave road towards the south. This side track is extremely difficult and the driving in the dark plus the passenger is hairy. Arjen falls in a difficult rocky passage and dislocates his arm. He can go on but is in severe pain. At least the shoulder isn’t dislocated. Completely exhausted, we camp in a hiding place at daybreak. There are eleven of us. The Swiss Toyota crew Marco Hediger, Reto Walter, Sibylle Graf and Silja Staheli as well as Frank Gottlober, Jurgen Matheis and Sascha Notter with two KTM and one Africa Twin. They were picked up the night before us. The next night the convoy creeps on under cover of darkness. We just manage 20 kilometers on the desert slope until dawn. It goes on like this for three nights until we reach the final hiding place. We have to be about 90 kilometers southwest of Illizi. Petra: On Monday March 10th, Algiers confirmed that the four men had not left the country. I’m totally confused. What do you do now? Christian’s mother has already informed the Foreign Office. I reject the idea of ​​going to the police. I’m afraid to hear that my husband is an adult, and whoever goes to Algeria shouldn’t be surprised. The Sahara forum on the Internet! They are closer! Who was the last to see the four enduro riders Martin Hainz, Christian Grune, Rainer Bracht and the Dutchman Arjen Hilbers? On the same day, we relatives put the first request online. At the Foreign Office, however, the matter is not yet really taken seriously. They probably have their reasons, but I’m going crazy right now. It’ll be better than we explain to pay for the cars and helicopters. Finally, the search begins. On the grave slope first. A friend from Tamanrasset reported by email about previous heavy rains in the region. Maybe this would have caused them difficulties. But there are also bandits going on there and an attack is conceivable. Esther is considering flying to Illizi. She speaks French fluently and still has a valid visa for Algeria. I brood for half the nights: When a technical problem forced the four of them to spend the night in an unfortunate place … Years ago we had just such a situation in Qued Imirhou. Nightmare!!! The idea of ​​being surprised by a half-meter high mud avalanche during the night … In the meantime, more and more people are reporting to the Sahara forum, giving countless information. I spend the night at the computer, and during the day I often spend up to eleven hours on the phone. Call, have someone called: the information goes back and forth. And Martin’s parents in Bad Tolz do not yet have an Internet connection! I laboriously keep you up to date over the phone. Martin was always of the opinion that the Internet was a pure time-killing machine. For me it is now the navel to the world. Rainer: During the day our hiding place turns out to be a crevice partly covered with stone slabs in a gorge of the Tamelrik Mountains. Two meters wide and 20 to 30 meters long. “Hotel Mujahedin,” as our guards call it. Some of them have been living here since October, built the connection to the grave runway themselves and got everything necessary for a hostage-taking. Within sight of the guard, we can move relatively freely in the gorge, we build a seating group with a table out of stones and a sun sail from my fly. There are loamy brown water from a few holes in the bottom of the gorge. Some of us feel disgusted, but I’ve decided to drink and eat everything there is. In the morning there is flat bread as much as we like, lentils, beans, rice, pasta and semolina in various combinations for lunch and dinner. Marc was pleasantly able to save jams, muesli and other goodies from his Toyota before the car with the motorbikes was left behind on the way. We were allowed to take our luggage with us. Some even sneak through cameras and films, while GPS, maps and travel guides find their way into the kidnap files. That’s what you need for the Jihad, the holy war. Petra: The search on the gravesite is abandoned without success! Meanwhile, the Sahara Forum reports another missing group: four Swiss Toyota drivers, also overdue since the end of February. I am very excited. If the storm had caused an accident, something should have been found! Clothing, motorcycle parts, tents … anything! One of them could certainly have saved himself! It simply cannot be that everyone falls victim to a mud avalanche at the same time. Arjen’s relatives suddenly claim that our people never got to Illizi! Arjen only talked about Tarat and the Qued Imirhou and saved this in his PC. Disastrously, neither campsites nor hotels in Illizi provide evidence of the group. Maybe it was just the stupid registration forms that hadn’t been filled out … I’m almost going crazy now because everything depends on my memory of the last phone call. Rainer was in Illizi ?? I am quite sure of that. People keep calling who have been to Algeria themselves or who tell me who might have last seen them. Including travel professionals such as Gerhard Gottler, Axel Darr, Dieter Hopfner and Werner Nother. They are especially important people to talk to! I don’t know what I would do without you. Rainer: We’ll soon get into a conversation with our guards and learn that your organization GSPC is a split from the Islamic FIS party that won the elections in Algeria in the early 1990s. However, this was then canceled by the military, whereupon the GSPC went into the underground fight against the regime in Algiers. A motley group sits around us, from farmers to university graduates, united by the belief that an Islamist society is the solution to all problems. The GSPC is organized in nine divisions, each comprising 40 to 50 fighters and a commanding emir. We are prisoners of the 5th Division with the Emir Abd el Razak amaria Abu Haidara ?? also known as el Para as a former paratrooper and army deserter. He is considered extremely ambitious, experienced in kidnappings and allegedly manages our operation single-handedly. The troops had apparently been on their way to Niger to buy weapons. When they came across the graves slope, they came up with the grandiose idea of ​​financing their weapon purchases by kidnapping tourists who are out and about on the slope. Petra: A new motorcycle group is missing. Jurgen Matheis, Frank Gottlober and Sascha Notter. They did not arrive on the ferry booked for March 14 and were also on the grave runway. In the opposite direction, from Bordj Omar Driss to Illizi. When I pass on the new development to Ms. Maas from the German Embassy in Algiers, she almost loses her composure. Now it is finally clear that there is something completely different behind this than getting lost or mishaps. Rainer: March 9th, today is my 46th birthday. I feel pretty bad. Although Sibylle and Silja can even find a bouquet of desert flowers, I cannot suppress the thoughts of home. Normally I would have come home today and we would have celebrated. Now Petra is finally certain that something bad must have happened. I hope she can do it. The next day, the mudjahs show up with four other hostages. Accidentally spotted by our guards while trying to find an escape route to Illizi ?? Fort Gardel Street. They couldn’t find a way through the deep canyons, but the four Augsburgers who took a break in their four-wheel drive Ivecos at a Guelta, a water point. With Erna and Kurt Schuster as well as Michaela Spitzer and Witek Mitko we are now fifteen. It is getting tight in the crevice. Petra: In order to narrow down the search area, we ask Ms. Maas to double-check whether our people may have registered with a military post in Hassi Bel Guebbour, El Adeb Larache or In Amenas. The matter now seems to be taken more seriously. It is grueling, because of Arjen’s notes, that the Dutch are of the same stance that our group would never have arrived in Illizi! The chaos in my head is getting bigger and bigger. Why didn’t I remember the last phone call in more detail? But who could have guessed how important that would be? The search is redirected in the opposite direction. Esther has now flown to Algiers after all. Totally exhausted with the nerves, she called. I don’t really get what she wants. Only that she will look for it herself now. With Mr. Zegri, the campsite operator from Illizi, she drives down the Tarat slope for two days while helicopters look for Imirhou from the air there and on the Qued. Mr. Zegri knows Rainer and I have all my hopes in him. But the search remains unsuccessful, after two days you return with ruined tires from driving much too fast on the lousy track. So nothing on the Tarat route either. I’m worried that we’re looking in the wrong place. At the Foreign Office I suspect that they may have been arrested by the military near the Libyan border. It couldn’t be, it is said from Berlin, an incident like this would have to be reported to the German authorities within three days! Well, the good man has never been outside Europe. Rainer: We listen to Deutsche Welle on a small radio. This tells us that we are at least missing. Apparently there are suspicions that we were lost because the Americans might have switched off the GPS because of the beginning of the Iraq war. Or drowned in a wadi or left without gas. Not a word of a letter of confession. Petra: In the Sahara forum, travelers report who apparently took the last picture of our boys. It shows them on the afternoon of February 21 at the Tin Taradjelli Pass. Tragically, the pass lies before the decisive fork in the Tarat Piste or Illizi. So the key question remains open. Now three tour groups are missing. All of them disappeared between February 23rd and 25th and must have been in the area of ​​the dune crest along the Qued Samene. Arjens relatives have taken vacation and are doing research in the team. I also find it increasingly difficult on my own when my friends are either traveling or far away. Finally, I set up the “Friday crisis table” with our siblings. We try to give each other and also Rainer strength. Rainer: Finally! With the disappearance of the Augsburgers it seems to have become clear that there was a crime. Algerian army helicopters suddenly circled over the region. We are no longer allowed to leave the crevice during the day. At first we are completely euphoric, try to give signs, paint SOS in the sand at night. But they circle and circle, turn off again. You have to see us! At some point they’ll stay away. Frustrated, we sink back into the now assumed lethargy. It’s been almost a month now. The tobacco has been smoked, everything readable has been read, the self-made card games have already been played numerous times. Some people shimmy from day to day, constantly hoping, I try to adjust to the situation. Worst of all is never to be alone. When the spring under the rocks dries up with the beginning of summer, I volunteer to fetch water at a guelta. One hour away. Simple. But it is a change. But when others wash their hair or feet with the laboriously dragged up water, it is difficult to remain friendly. X. wants pills. We have a few but ration them for really bad pain. X. is depressed, it probably was before. The trip was an attempt to break out that now went completely wrong. I don’t know how one has to be built to get through this eternal wait. In any case, not unstable. Petra: In the Sahara forum all people who still wanted to go to Algeria are offering their help! We ask them to warn other tourists, because hardly anyone knows about the matter so far. They distribute leaflets with search notices on the ferry and post them on the campsites in Tunisia and Algeria. But in Algeria they disappear immediately. On March 17th, BILD brings the first small article. The beginning of an avalanche! Rainer: On the fiftieth day, a helicopter lands nearby and burns down a fundamentalist pickup. Can’t they see us in the rugged terrain? We have to vacate the hiding place immediately and move 500 meters further into a cave. Petra: On March 19, Ms. Maas from the embassy flies to Illizi herself with a Swiss colleague. You rent all the cars that can roll and give Mr. Zegri the job of leading the search. It is just strange, as I found out later, that all search parties are back around 5 p.m. every day. Strange considering the size of the area. I often ask myself which side the Algerians are actually on. It was decided to send a camel caravan to search the region for two weeks. It is said that you can see more like this than with cars. Fortunately, the Swiss have money with them. So far, the people down there have borne all costs. Sometimes I am speechless. The caravan sets out on March 24th. At the same time, helicopters with thermal imaging cameras soar. And there is still no evidence of the overnight stay in Illizi. Rainer: April 30th is our 19th wedding anniversary. A day that we hardly register at home. It feels very different here. I feel bad, and I’m afraid so does Petra. I think about her a lot. Some time ago the emir disappeared with 20 fighters, contact is only by radio. Finally, the news comes that this group has taken 17 other tourists hostage. There are now 32 prisoners, but no letters of confession. Meanwhile, food is becoming scarce, bread is rationed and the amount of water in the soup is steadily increasing. Christian tries to negotiate to accelerate our release. This gives our guide Osama such useful things as new shoes, otherwise nothing changes. In my opinion, it is not we but others who negotiate about us. I’m pretty much alone with this point of view. They say that would go beyond my “wait and see and drink tea” horizon. I hate illusions. I am quite patient for this and consider good relationships with ordinary fighters to be more important. Like Osama, who regularly slips us something, or Abu Hafsa, who sometimes secretly bakes bread for us. Petra: More and more tourists are reported missing! Now the authorities are wide awake, so many well-equipped teams cannot simply disappear. On April 1, the Federal Foreign Office forms a crisis team. Everyone is slowly starting to understand what is happening. But what if it’s a kidnapping? why are there no demands? The police report that I now have to file a missing person report. They write down Rainer’s personal information. And fingerprints and hair for DNA analysis … I hope they never will. I know they are alive! Part 2 will follow in MOTORRAD 25/2003

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