Relatives Of Kenyans Captured In Iraq Plead For Their Release

MOMBASA, July 22 (AFP) - The wives and other relatives of three Kenyans kidnapped and threatened with execution in Iraq on Thursday pleaded for the men's release and recalled their last messages to their families.
Ibrahim Hamisi, Jalal Awad and Faiz Salim Hamisi were captured alongside three Indians and an Egyptian while working as drivers in Iraq on Wednesday.
Speaking to journalists near the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, a tearful Aisha Nyarimbo Mwandegi, the wife of Ibrahim Hamisi, urged the abductors to free her husband, who left Kenya on January 8 to seek work in the Gulf.
"On Friday, he sent a (mobile phone) text message to the children, telling them that life was tough in Iraq and he asked us to pray for him," Mwandegi said.
"I pray that they release my husband safely," she added, surrounded by neighbours and her children. Some were too young to understand the drama and played happily at her feet.
"He told us that most of his fellow workers had returned (to Kenya), but he promised to persevere," added Mwandegi.
Jalal Awad's wife Samira said her husband seemed cheerful when he was last in touch and had asked his family to pray for him as he was about to embark on a long journey.
"I last communicated with him on Tuesday at about 9:00 am. He was jovial and told me he was going for a trip and asked me to pray for him," she explained in her house, in the Mombasa suburb of Kisauni.
Samira first learnt of her husband's abduction on Wednesday night and later saw him on a television news bulletin.
"He told me that US troops usually escort them whenever they travel to Iraq, but where were they this time round?", she asked.
She said that Awad had previously worked in Saudi Arabia between 1996 and 1999 as a truck driver who transported food and medicine to Iraq but had been unemployed for long periods since then.
Faiz Salim Hamisi's younger brother, who looked sorrowful, urged Nairobi to facilitate.
"We are asking the Kenyan government to help secure the release of our brother and the rest of the Kenyans," he tolf AFP in an interview.
"They did not go to Kuwait in order to fight Iraq, but rather to reconstruct the country and help their families back here," he added, before breaking down in tears.
"We are asking for all imams throughout Kenya to pray for the safekeeping of the Kenyan capitives and the other brothers," Sheikh Mohammed DorMohammed, Secretary General of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya, told a press conference in Mombasa.
In Nairobi, government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the government was working to facilitate the release of the three, who worked for Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport, a trucking company.
"We know of three Kenyans (being held). We have identified them and are currently talking to their families," Mutua told AFP by phone.
"We have established contact in Kuwait with people they used to work for and they are trying to establish contact with the kidnappers," he added.