Gunmen hold up 50 Dakar Rally competitors
Gunmen hold up 50 Dakar Rally competitors
PARIS (Reuters): Mauritanian troops on Thursday hunted highway robbers fleeing across the Sahara desert after robbing about 50 Dakar Rally competitors at gunpoint, organizers said on Thursday.
The drivers fell one after one into a trap set up by about 20 well-armed men 50 kilometers from the end of the 12th stage in Tichit, Mauritania, on Wednesday night.
"I had the fright of a lifetime," said driver Eric Vigouroux, describing on French television how he was separated from the other drivers in the dark by a man armed with a submachine-gun who demanded everything he had.
The competitors were held for several hours until midnight, when the robbers made off with four cars, three trucks, a motorcycle, money and identity documents.
All the other vehicles had their fuel tanks emptied.
French television said the robbers had stolen hundreds of thousands of francs (tens of thousands of dollars). Drivers told French television the ambush was carried out with military precision and they suspected the robbers to be rebels from Mali.
Race director Hubert Auriol said Thursday's 13th stage would go ahead as planned.
He said the three stolen trucks had later been found abandoned in the desert and were being driven back to race headquarters.
French television said helicopters had spotted the robbers heading northeast for the Malian or Algerian border and Mauritanian troops were in pursuit.
In the race, Frenchmen Jean-Louis Schlesser and Richard Sainct strengthened their overall leads in the car and motorcycle classes respectively with impressive stage wins on Wednesday.
Schlesser had his buggy stuck in the sand of Mauritania after 350 kilometers of the 490-kilometer 12th stage from Nema to Tichit but managed to start off quickly to clinch the section in seven hours nine minutes 23 seconds.
The Frenchman extended his overall lead to 20 minutes 27 seconds over Spain's Miguel Prieto, driving a Mitsubishi.
Overall standings
Cars: 1. Jean-Louis Schlesser (Fra) Schlesser 55hrs 27mins 34secs 2. Miguel Prieto (Spa) Mitsubishi, 20:27 behind 3. Jutta Kleinschmidt (Ger) Mitsubishi, 1:31:40 4. Kenjiro Shinozuka (Jpn) Mitsubishi, 2:10:42 5. Jose Maria Servia (Spa) Schlesser, 3:28:39
Motorcycles: 1. Richard Sainct (Fra) BMW, 45hrs 4mins 17secs 2. Thierry Magnaldi (Fra) KTM, 4:41 behind 3. Fabrizio Meoni (Ita) KTM, 17:57 4. Alfie Cox (Rsa) KTM, 24:46 5. Kari Tiainen (Fin) KTM, 1:08:01