Some interesting comments relating to the Krone.at articles. As others have noted, these articles are probably just useful for sifting factual stuff. There are always a few lessons we can learn.

The problem that any description of an ordeal like this has to contend with is simply that it is very difficult to convert the fears one might experience under these conditions into words which the public (most of whom haven't been on a camping trip, never mind the Algerian Sahara) has a hope of understanding. So the talk decends into vipers and scorpions and the things the newspapers expect the public to fear.

I would have thought that the problems one feels in a hostage situation are the great uncertainty and the loss of personal freedom. It is unusual for us to have our days dictated by someone totally different from us and unkown to us. And not knowing how long and where/when it might end, if ever, must be hard to endure. But that's kindof hard to write about in these sort of tabloid articles.

If you had taken 17 people and told them they would have to drive round the desert at night, sit back and watch their vehicles being trashed, then walk in stealth away from their rescuers - but that it was going to all come to a safe end after, say, exactly 50 days, then the thing becomes do-able. But not knowing that it is 50 or 150 or 500 days or death, must be the hard thing to cope with.

Along with 2 others, I found myself in the hands of the Niger military for 10 days following a strange set of circumstances in the Tenere (see S files on Sahara-overland - 'Tenere Troubles'). Ten days is not 50 days and it was the Niger military not some unknown guys in Algeria. But the great problem for me was the uncertainty. I was surprised how difficult that was to deal with. The group of 15, I suspect, must be struggling with that every minute as we read these postings. It must be hard for them.