A source at the Egyptian ministry of interior said on Monday that the two Brazilian tourists who were kidnapped the previous day, along with tour guide, have been released. The guide and the two women were released only after hours from their seizing, unharmed. A security official told Bikyamasr.com Sunday, on the condition of anonymity, that six Bedouin tribesmen had kidnapped two Brazilian tourists along with their Egyptian tour guide and a policeman in Egypt's Sinai desert. The kidnappers abducted them from a bus, the official said. The tourists, a woman and a teenage girl, were returning from the historic monastery of Saint Catherine, a popular tourist destination in southern Sinai, when the tribesmen seized them about 60 kilometers away from the Wady Ferran area, according to the officials. The state news agency MENA quoted Goma'a Seleem, the head of the Sinai tribal coalition saying that they moved almost immediately to free the abducted tourists. Seleem added that the Bedouins of Sinai completely “reject kidnappings,” which directly affects the livelihood of many of them, who live on tourism earnings. This is the latest in a series of abductions by tribesmen in the Sinai Peninsula to demand the release of relatives detained by the police who are said to have been incarcerated from the Mubarak era. In February, two US tourists were abducted and released hours later. The Bedouin tribes of the Sinai have been largely marginalized by the Egyptian government long before Mubarak came to power in 1981, and they exist almost outside regular Egyptian society — Bedouins are not allowed to enlist in the police force, for example. Egypt is heavily reliant on tourism, and this recent spate of tourist abductions has done nothing to assuage concerns for the safety of foreign tourists visiting the Sinai. Tourism has seen at least a 30 percent drop since the 2011 popular uprising that ousted the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. The Sinai is immensely popular with high-end, five-star hotels and resorts, and too, budget-inclined backpackers. The scuba diving that is available on the Red Sea coast is considered world class. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/Xr6yi Tags: Brazil, Egypt, featured, Kidnapping, Sinai, Tourists Section: Egypt, Latest News, South America