BEGOPARA, India, 30 July 2004 — The kidnapping of Indians and killings of foreign hostages by Iraqi insurgents has thrown this tiny village into turmoil, with anxious families huddled around televisions and telephones awaiting news of relatives working in the Middle East.
Some 5,000 men traveled from here to the Gulf last year to work, many of them ending up as cooks in besieged US Army garrisons in the war-torn country.
Residents in Begopara, which has a largely Catholic population, say around 2,000 have since returned, but the recent spate of kidnappings has heightened fears for the fate of the 3,000-or-so who are still in Iraq.
“We are very worried. Car bombs are killing people almost every day. Foreigners are taken hostage and being mercilessly killed,” said resident Sunil Rodricks, as news broke that two Pakistanis taken hostage had been killed by the armed group holding them.
The fearful residents of Begopara meet every day in a tea shop to discuss the latest news from Iraq. “This tea shop has been our news center. Every morning villagers crowd the shop to share their anxieties and get news from Iraq, if any,” Rodricks said.
The 55-year-old Rodricks, who himself worked in the Gulf as a cook for 27 years, added: “We are worried a lot. When telephones ring at homes, we rush to pick up the receiver in the hope of hearing from our sons and brothers from the distant land, but our hopes remain just hope.”
Reports yesterday that the Pakistani hostages had been killed added urgency to New Delhi’s bid to negotiate the release of three abducted Indian truckers, seized along with three Kenyans and an Egyptian on July 21 by Iraqi insurgents.
The captors are demanding the withdrawal from Iraq of the Kuwait-based transport firm for which the seven worked.
Back in Begopara, Chabi Mondal, 35, said her husband flew to the Gulf last year to earn comparatively lucrative wages promised him by a local travel agent. “I am spending sleepless nights with my son after I heard the news of the kidnapping of the seven truck drivers in Iraq,” Chabi said in Begopara, 80 kilometers from Calcutta, the provincial capital of West Bengal state. “My son is glued to the television watching CNN and BBC news to get the latest.”
An estimated 100,000 Indian nationals are still there. “Those who have returned from Iraq and Kuwait told us that some 3,000 Begopara youths are still working as cooks in different military camps in Iraq,” said Debashis Ghosh, whose brother is employed in a American garrison near Baghdad.
Kamal Biswas said his worries had been mounting since the abductions of the Indians and Pakistanis.
“I heard that my son is in a camp in Baghdad. We are waiting anxiously for a telephone call,” said Biswas, whose 25-year-old son Saikat is serving as cook in a garrison in Iraq.
Eighty-year-old Baren Mondal said his son Benjamin was working in a US Army kitchen on the outskirts of Baghdad. “Bombs were pounding the camp when he rang me up a few days back. The telephone went dead. We do not know if he is alive or dead,” Mondal said.
India Warns Citizens
Against Travel to Iraq
India advised its nationals yesterday to postpone visits to Iraq, a week after three Indian truck drivers were taken hostage by a militant group in the country. “In view of the seriousness of the current security situation in Iraq, the government of India advises its citizens to defer visits to that country for the time being,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The travel advisory came hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said New Delhi continued to make efforts to secure the release of the hostages. A group calling itself the “Black Banners” seized the Indians and four other drivers - three Kenyans and an Egyptian - and threatened to behead them unless the Kuwait transport firm employing them pulled out of Iraq.
India says the captors simply want a ransom and has sought the help of friendly countries to free the three men. New Delhi has banned recruitment of its nationals to work in Iraq but admits that 5,000 have gone anyway, mostly from the Gulf region where an estimated 3.5 million Indians live and work. Recruiting agents say that hundreds of Indians are still lining up for jobs in Iraq in an attempt to escape poverty at home.
