4 Keralites flee US camp in Iraq, return home

In A harrowing tale of deceit, anguish and escape, four Keralites — ‘‘cheated’’ by job agents and taken to a US mil...

In A harrowing tale of deceit, anguish and escape, four Keralites — ‘‘cheated’’ by job agents and taken to a US military camp in Iraq — managed to reach home after going through a nine-month-long ordeal in a US camp as slaves.

Two brothers among them — Hameed and Shajahan of Velichakkala village — while narrating their tale, said they were among 20 Malayalis who escaped from the camp run by US soldiers near Mosul. ‘‘Memories of those nine months — the deafening sounds of bombs and shell attacks and menial treatment by gun-toting US soldiers — will always haunt me,’’ Hameed said.

They were victims of a job racket that took them to Iraq on the promise of a job in Kuwait. ‘‘From Kuwait city, we were taken on a long road journey, which ended at a checkpoint. There we boarded another bus. Finally, we reached a city and from a hotel’s sign board, we came to know it was Iraq,’’ Shajahan said.

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They said that in the first four months there they were not allowed to telephone or write home. Though they were told that Rs 12,000 would be sent to their home every month, not a single dollar was paid to them.

With life becoming unbearable and any risk worth taking, they escaped from the camp last month and reached Baghdad with the help of a truck driver. From Baghdad they went to Falluja and then to Jordan and Doha before reaching Mumbai on April 28.

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