"It might be a gesture against the Egyptian government that perfectly knows that such facts put off travelling in the country, which makes tourism one of its main sources of income". With these words, father Luciano Verdoscia, a Combonian missionary and director of the Islamic Studies Department at the Papal Institute of Arab-Islamic Studies at Cairo, comments with SIR the abduction of the tourists in Aswan on September 19th. "When one wants to hit the government, one hits the economy. There is intelligence behind these bands of marauders who show them the right way to move and commit such deeds. The targets are clear". The missionary thinks "the risk that negotiations might last long and other groups may butt in, may be Islamic terrorists who might get hold of the groups of kidnapped tourists, should not be underestimated and might considerably make things worse". Such actions are also caused by the internal situation: "in Egypt, prices have risen as in the rest of the world explains the Combonian father . There are wide strata of the population that cannot even get hold of the bare necessities, and I am not speaking of meat or fish, but vegetables or rice. When a population has no means to live and no access to education, it remains in poverty and ignorance, so it can be more easily manipulated. Ignorance and poverty are the foundations of fundamentalism, and in Egypt this situation is tragic". ” “
