By Bogonko Bosire
NAIROBI, July 22 (AFP) - Kenya on Thursday urged all its citizens in Iraq to leave the country immediately, a day after three Kenyans were taken hostage there and threatened with execution, prompting tearful pleas for their release from relatives.
"We urge all Kenyans in Iraq to leave at once and all those in neighbouring countries, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to register with the Kenyan mission in Kuwait," government spokesman Alfred Mutua told a press conference in Nairobi.
Mutua, who named the kidnapped men as Jalal Mohamed Awadh, 39, Faiz Khamis Salim, 39, and Ibrahim Khamis Idd, 48, said there are about 100 Kenyans in Kuwait alone.
Together with three Indians and an Egyptian, they were kidnapped on Wednesday "by a group that is calling itself 'The Holders of the Black Banners,'" Mutua said.
This latest abduction drama unfolded as as a Filipino lorry driver touched down in Manila at the end of his own 17-day hostage ordeal in Iraq.
Several foreigners abducted in Iraq have been executed by their captors.
The group, also referred to in some reports as "Black Flags," has threatened to behead the seven unless the Kuwaiti company they worked for pulled out of Iraq.
Mutua said the Kenyan government was "working closely with contacts in Iraq," to secure the release of the three Kenyans, who were drivers for Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company.
"We are also in contact with the owner of the company and he has assured us he is doing all he can to get the men released... The ministry of foreign affairs is spearheading efforts to get the men released," Mutua said.
"Kenya has no troops in Iraq. We also do not have any Kenyan companies operating in Iraq," he said.
"We plead with the kidnappers to release the men so that they can be re-united with their families.
"We assure them that Kenya has no intention of interfering with the lives of the Iraqi people and that we are discouraging our citizens from engaging in work that takes them to Iraq," Mutua added.
Mutua requested the the kidnappers to "have the mercy of God and let them come home. Their children are waiting."
At the same press conference, Umi Mohammed Omollo, speaking on behalf of abductees' relatives, pleaded for the release of the men, saying they had "left their families and headed to Kuwait in search of an honest living so that they can educate their children and feed their families."
"In the name of the Lord, the merciful, we beg for the release of the hostages. We parents and children are waiting in great anxiety and fear," said Omollo, who is a cousin of Khamis Idd.
"Do not leave behind orphans," she to told the kidnappers, adding: "For sure they did not indulge themselves into the Iraq politics or war."
Speaking to journalists near the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, a tearful Aisha Nyarimbo Mwandegi, the wife of Hamisi Idd, 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, surrounded by neighbours and her children.
"He told us that most of his fellow workers had returned (to Kenya), but he promised to persevere," added Mwandegi.
"I pray that they release my husband safely," she added.
The abducteees "did not go to Kuwait in order to fight Iraq, but rather to reconstruct the country and help their families back here," Faiz Khamis Salim's younger brother told journalists.
Jalal Mohamed Awadh's wife said her husband seemed in good spirits when they last spoke.
"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," Samira explained in her house, in the Mombasa suburb of Kisauni.
"He told me that US troops usually escort them whenever they travel to Iraq, but where were they this time round?" she asked.