Two Britons are believed to have been injured in a bomb blast in the Maldives that has wounded at least 12 tourists, the Foreign Office said today.

The blast happened outside the main mosque in Male, the capital of the republic of islands in the Indian Ocean.

It is thought the two British tourists were staying on Baros, just one of 87 designated tourist islands in the ocean chain.

The population of the state is Islamic, but the threat of terrorism is classed as "low" in the Foreign Office advice to tourists.

Tourism has grown hugely in the Maldives over recent years with around 8% more people visiting every year.

About 16 per cent of the tourists come from the UK, with almost 100,000 Britons travelling to the islands in 2003.

A spokeswoman for Universal Resorts, a firm based in the Maldives that owns some resorts, including Baros, confirmed that two British guests had been injured.

She said the unnamed couple, who live in the Gulf state of Qatar, were already preparing to fly back to the Middle East.

"As far as we are aware Universal Resorts have a total of 10 guests who were injured, two of whom were UK citizens who actually live in Qatar," she said.

"Those two guests are being taken care of in the hospital in Male and are with Universal Resorts staff.

"They have requested that they would like to go back to Qatar as soon as possible."

She added that the other eight guests were from China and were already thought to be back at their resort, recovering.

The two other injured tourists, who were not guests of Universal Resorts, are believed to be from Japan.

The Foreign Office said the information it had from the authorities in the Maldives was that one of the British people was seriously injured.

But the Universal Resorts spokeswoman said: "We would not class the injuries as serious. Both of them have received some burns.

"They are burns to hands, legs and some cuts but they are not serious and most definitely are not life threatening."

One of the FCO's staff is flying out to the Maldives from Sri Lanka to assist the injured Britons, a spokeswoman said.

The FCO does not have staff permanently based in the Maldives.

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