KATHMANDU, Aug 23 (AFP) - The government of Nepal appealed Monday for the release of 12 of its nationals allegedly abducted in Iraq, as the impoverished families of the men desperately sought information.
The Himalayan kingdom's foreign ministry said it had no independent information on the alleged abduction but that its diplomats in the Middle East were studying pictures published Sunday by an Islamic militant website.
"The Nepalese embassy in Doha has been asked to furnish detailed information and the pictures," a statement said.
It said Nepal's minister of state for foreign affairs, Prakash Sharan Mahat, had spoken to Doha-based Al-Jazeera television to stress that Nepal was not part of the US-led coalition in Iraq.
"He made an appeal to the militants clarifying that these people were there for employment and not as troops," the statement said.
Names of the 12 alleged hostages were published by Nepalese newspapers, which contacted employment agencies in Kathmandu and Jordan.
Their families said the men had traveled to Iraq in hopes of escaping poverty in the Himalayan kingdom, which is ravaged by a Maoist insurgency.
"I told him not to go there but he refused my advice. He told me, 'There may be conflict there, but there is also conflict here, so I should go earn some money,'" said Jit Bahadur Khadka, whose son Ramesh Khadka was reported missing.
His family members, who are manual labourers, were in tears as they clutched a portrait of their son at their modest home in Lele on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
Khadka's father said his son had made no contact with his family after flying to Jordan. He had traveled through an employment agent in Nepal but he did not know which one or what exactly his son was to do in Iraq.
In the southeastern town of Janakpur on the Indian border, the family of labourer Manoj Kumar Thakur camped out at the district headquarters waiting for information.
"Our son is not with us and there is no news from the government. We will wait here until we find something out," said his father Sanjay Kumar Thakur.
An Islamic militant group, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, on Sunday published pictures of 12 men on its website and said it was showing "an example for whoever combats Islam and the Muslims, and supports and assists the Crusader occupation forces in Iraq."
Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries, has been engulfed since 1996 in an insurgency by Maoist rebels seeking to overthrow the monarchy. Some 10,000 people have died.
Nepal declined US requests to send troops to Iraq, saying its army had its hands full with the Maoists.