RIYADH, 7 December 2004 — Of the expatriates killed in the US Consulate attack in Jeddah, yesterday, two have been identified as Sri Lankan and Sudanese nationals. The Sri Lankan Mohamed Sadiq Jaufer, 23, from Gelioya and Emad Musa from Sudan succumbed to gun shot injuries when caught in the crossfire between the terrorists and the Saudi security forces. Basheer Mohamed from the South Indian city of Madras was seriously injured in the fray.
Jaufer was a contract guard working for Othman and Ghamdi Security and General Services Company while the others were engaged in the general services of the mission contracted by the same company.
According to his colleagues, deceased Sadiq Jaufer has been working for the company for the past three years and last week he had applied for his vacation to go to Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh confirmed his death and said that it was contacting his family in Gelioya, 150 kms from the capital of Colombo to inform the news of Jaufer’s death through its Foreign Ministry in Colombo. “I met Jaufer in the morning and he told me that he was going to Sri Lanka in two weeks to take his sick father to India for medical treatment,” one of his friends — who is also his neighbor in his hometown — told Arab News on condition of anonymity.
“When we heard the security alarm of the mission, we took precautions by locking the room and hiding according to standing security instructions,” said Mohamed Nirous, who was working with two Indians and the deceased Sudanese inside the building.
“After 20 minutes we heard gun shots close to our building and we found the terrorists had broken open our doors and came to us asking for Americans,” Nirous said. “We were so frightened that we told them that we are all Asians working for a private company in the complex and appealed to them not to harm us,” and then “they forced us to leave the building immediately,” he said.
As soon as they came out, the four workers were caught in the crossfire. One of them died and the other was injured.
