KHAFJI, 22 March 2003 — Foreign missions are stationing officials in this border town anticipating an influx of their citizens from Kuwait city.
The Indian and Philippine embassies have posted officials in Khafji to coordinate with immigration officials in case nationals of their respective countries cross over the border from Kuwait.
According to First Secretary at the Indian Embassy Zikrur Rahman, who is supervising the operation, no Indian has yet arrived. “But we saw a large-scale migration of Indians from Kuwait to Khafji during the 1990-91 Gulf War and we don’t rule out that this could happen again. In any case we don’t want to take any chances,” he said.
There are more than 350,000 Indians in Kuwait, and during the 1991 Gulf War hundreds of them crossed over the border. Most of them were sheltered at the then Indian Embassy School in Dammam and later repatriated to India.
Rahman said that the embassy officials will coordinate with the Saudi officials in order to secure a smooth transit for the Indian refugees. “We have completed all the logistics for their fast and smooth transportation to India via Dammam,” he said. Rahman was returning to Riyadh after completing the arrangements.
The situation in Khafji town is normal and people denied reports in another Saudi English language daily that many people have left the city. “There is concern among the people, but no one is thinking of leaving the city,” Ahmad Al-Abki, a local journalist in Khafji, said. A wedding ceremony in one of Khafji’s popular wedding halls illustrated the normalcy in this border town, which was occupied by Iraqi forces for a short while in 1991. The owner of Swayyil Kodak Film Studio said that in the past 24 hours he worked at a couple of weddings. “People are happy and enjoying the festivities,” he said.
Border officials said there was no abnormal increase in traffic from Kuwait. It was anticipated that after yesterday’s Iraqi Scud attack on Kuwait many Kuwaitis might leave for Saudi Arabia.
But Abki said many Kuwaitis who have business in the town in fact intended to return home late in the evening.
