Reports on escalation in the battle between Sunni-ISIl militants and Government troops in Iraq and the kidnapping of 40 Indians have heightened the anxiety among the relatives of Keralites stuck in that country even as the State Government has reiterated it is doing everything possible to ensure their safety and to bring back those willing to return.
Relatives were sitting a bit relieved till the other day as they were receiving telephone calls from Iraq, but the confirmation on Wednesday of reports of kidnapping of 40 Indian workers from Mosul has broken that relief. Inability of the Keralites to recharge their mobiles due to the raging battle on most streets has added to the confusion.
On Wednesday, reports quoted nurses stranded in Tikrit as saying that they had asked the Indian Embassy in Iraq to either take them back home or to give them jobs in a place away from that city. It is also said the terms of their job contracts could be changed now as a new local Government has taken over and that there could be pay reduction by up to $ 550 per month.
The Non-Resident Keralites Department of the Government says it has information on 46 Kerala nurses stranded in a hospital in Tikrit and 19 in Diyala in Iraq and that all of them are safe. It said it was trying to find out whether they could safely travel to the Baghdad Airport by road so that the Indian Embassy could evacuate them.
“Volunteers from the Red Crescent had spoken with these nurses. They are safe, though they are trapped in a situation where they are unable to get out of their rooms. It takes three-and-a-half-hour journey by road from Diyala to the airport which is hazardous at the moment,” P Sudeep, NORKA’s chief executive officer, said in Thiruvananthapuram.
“The way the militants are behaving has given the Indians a feeling that they have no plan to attack the Tikrit Teaching Hospital where the 46 nurses are stuck. The nurses have been advised not to go near the windows. Otherwise they are safe,” said Sudeep, adding that the NORKA would bear the expenses of the travel of the Keralites back home if it was required.
“The Keralites in Iraq are safe. However, most of those who are telephoning us want to come back. Some of them have financial problems but there is no need to worry about that,” he said. Sudeep also said that NORKA did not have the exact number of Keralites in Iraq but instructions were being given to whoever was calling the department, he added.
Aby Jose, brother of Merina, a Keralite nurse stranded in the Tikrit hospital, says that all the family wants is her to return home. Merina’s father Jose of Poovathilappu, Kottayam said though the State Government was doing everything it could to guarantee the safety of the nurses, only the Centre could help for taking them back to India.
Jose said Merina had been calling the family everyday and assuring them that she and her colleagues were safe in their rooms in the hospital complex. Most of the 46 Keralite nurses in the Tikrit hospital belonged to Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Idukki and Kannur districts, Jose quoted his daughter as saying.