By Andrew Cawthorne BERAHILE, Ethiopia, March 6 (Reuters) - A British government team searching for five embassy-linked people kidnapped in Ethiopia's remote Afar region left on Tuesday with no sign that the missing had been found. The three-person investigating team gave no comment as it left Berahile, a town of sandy streets that Ethiopian police are using as a staging area for the hunt for the Europeans abducted last week in the northeastern region. The five, who include diplomatic employees from the British embassy in Addis Ababa, are believed to have been kidnapped about 50 km (30 miles) away in Hamad-Ile. Investigators on Monday found two of their vehicles abandoned there, riddled by shrapnel. Police in the town, where trains of camels hauling loads of salt blocks ply rough tracks, declined to give details of the investigation on national security grounds. "Our teams are out there. We are doing everything we can," said one police officer who declined to give his name. Afar is home to one of the world's hottest and driest climates, where the nomadic Afar people roam in barren landscapes of mountains and dry riverbeds in temperatures that often reaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Tourists, who usually travel with armed guards to protect them from bandits, brave the climate to see ancient salt mines, volcanoes and the part of the Danakil Depression -- one of Africa's lowest areas -- which runs through Afar. A Foreign Office spokeswoman in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa said the vehicles were being examined by Ethiopian and British investigators. "The discovery of the vehicles has been very distressing for the families of the missing people. We want to stress that we have no reason to believe that the people were in the vehicles," she said. Destroying vehicles is a common tactic to prevent pursuit, the source added. Witnesses said some of the Europeans' personal belongings were still in the vehicles. The British investigating team included British embassy in Ethiopia's number two diplomat, Deborah Fisher, a forensics expert and a third official that diplomats and witnesses speculate may be a special forces operator. The British government does not comment on special forces operations, but is known to have hostage rescue teams that include elite soldiers. No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, or demanded ransom.
