Hostage truckers 'forced to enter Iraq'

[Barrett808]

Hostage truckers 'forced to enter Iraq'
By Andrew England in Mombasa
Published: July 28 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: July 28 2004 5:00

When a Kenyan recruitment agency advertised for truck drivers for Kuwait, it had little trouble getting applicants.

In Kenya, where half the population lives on less than a $1 aday, the lure of a two-year contract worth $360 a month, plus allowances and the promise of overtime, was too good to resist.

But within months of the first Kenyans arriving in Kuwait, many of their expectations were dashed. They found themselves forced to drive through the frontlines of the insurgency in neighbouring Iraq, delivering supplies to US and British troops, according to several drivers and a former manager of the Kuwaiti company that employed them.

Three of the more than 60 Kenyans employed by Kuwait & Gulf Link Transport Company were among seven drivers abducted last week by an Iraqi group as they were driving near Falluja, a militant stronghold in Iraq's so-called Sunni triangle.

The hostages' families, moreover, said the men never knew they would have to go to Iraq when they took the jobs. Relatives of one of the captives, Ibrahim Khamis Idd, said they only found out he was in Iraq when they heard he had been abducted.

"He did not tell us he was going to Iraq," said Ahmed Kamal, the brother of hostage Jalal Mohamed Awadh. "If he knew he was going for this type of salary, he would never work with them."


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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087374027606

[Gin]

1. more for haliburton...he gets peanuts and captured...maybe killed...they

get rich...bastards

[w4rma]

2. Evil. (nt)