BAGHDAD, Sept 28 (AFP) - Egyptian telecom giant Orascom said Tuesday that one Egyptian employee and two Iraqis who were among a group of eight kidnapped in Iraq last week had been freed.
Earlier, the company said that two Egyptian hostages had been freed on Monday.
"We thought they had released two, but actually it was one," an Orascom spokesman said.
He also confirmed that two Iraqis were freed but did not say when.
Four Egyptians and two Iraqis were snatched at the Iraqi-Syrian border town of Al-Qaim last Wednesday and the following day two more Egyptian Orascom employees were seized in Baghdad.
The kidnappings have not been claimed by any group but they came amid a spate of abductions of foreigners since April that have seen nearly 150 foreigners kidnapped.
On Monday, the Egyptian government newspaper Al-Ahram said the captors were demanding a ransom totalling 350,000 dollars for the six Egyptian hostages.
The liberation comes as the fate of a number of Western hostages, including two female Italian aid workers, two French journalists and a British engineer, remain shrouded in mystery.
Two US contractors, kidnapped along with Briton Kenneth Bigley, were beheaded last week.