The 40 Indians are construction workers. There are around 46 Indian nurses in Tikrit, the hometown of late Saddam Hussein. Some 14 of the nurses want to leave while others are still willing to hang on, said sources.
NEW DELHI: Around 40 Indians working on projects near the Iraqi city of Mosul were kidnapped by suspected ISIS militants when they were being evacuated from the area ravaged by the war between the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and Sunni jihadis.
The 40 Indians were waylaid when they were being evacuated from the war zone because of fear for their safety in view of the spiralling civil war. Mosul, the heart of the oil-rich region dominated by ethnic Kurds, was captured by ISIS raiders before being retaken by the ‘peshmargas’, the Kurd militia.
A worried Indian government responded to the crisis by getting in touch with Iraqi authorities and by dispatching former ambassador to Iraq Suresh Reddy. Reddy, recently appointed as special envoy to Asean and known to have contacts among Iraqis, was on his way to Mosul.
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