27 JAN: Bedouin tribesmen have stormed a tourist resort in Egypt's Sinai peninsula in an effort to reclaim land, UK newspaper The Guardian reports. It’s the latest in a string of conflicts between the Egyptian state and local communities encouraged to air grievances in the wake of the revolution which ousted ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian media reports said dozens of gunmen took control of Aqua-Sun, a Red Sea hotel complex boasting 2km of private beaches to the south of Taba, and were demanding 4m Egyptian pounds (about $520,00) in exchange for leaving the site peacefully.

No tourists were staying in the resort at the time, and although several Egyptian security guards were taken hostage during the incident their lives are not believed to be in danger, The Guardian says.

Disputes over land have been common in the Sinai ever since the central government embarked on a mass ‘Red Sea Riviera’ program of resort construction along the eastern coast in the 1990s.

Customary law was replaced by a new system of land ownership, and large swaths of previously Bedouin-controlled coastal areas were sold to private investors under the auspices of the state, leading to allegations by some locals that they were being cheated out of their property.