Indian workers return from Iraq, complain of ill treatment

Indian workers arrived back home from war-ravaged Iraq on Friday, complaining of ill treatment by the Iraq administration and the Indian embassy in Baghdad.

Their arrival at New delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) even as media reports said that fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are advancing towards Baghdad from new strongholds near the Iraq-Syrian border.

About 10,000 Indian nationals work in Iraq, mostly in areas unaffected by the fighting between the ISIL and the national army. About 100 Indian workers are trapped in areas overrun by ISIL.

An Indian worker, Mohammad Zaid Ansari, who escaped from Iraq via Qatar, said: "The situation there is very bad. The Indian government should try to bring back the stranded Indian nationals as soon as possible. The situation in the area, which is just around 500-600 kilometers away from where I stay, is very violent. The government there is not even providing food properly to the stranded workers. I have escaped from there via Qatar."

Forty Indian construction workers have been kidnapped in Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, which fell to Sunni insurgents earlier this month. No ransom demand has been received.

The Indian Government has contacted many of them, including 46 nurses, and has sent a senior envoy to Baghdad to support repatriation efforts.

Another Indian worker who managed to leave Iraq, Mohammad Mehtab, complained of lack of assistance by the embassy.

"The situation there is really bad. The embassy there is also not helping the people. They are refusing to speak when being telephoned," he said.

The kidnapping is the first serious foreign policy crisis for the new government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with relatives of the hostages demanding swift action to free them.

Dozens more foreigners, including many from Turkey, have been taken captive during the Jihadi militants' offensive in towns in the Tigris valley north of Baghdad in recent days.

Families of Indian workers kidnapped in Iraq are hoping for the safety of their loved ones and have appealed the government for help.

ISIL's surge may pose the biggest security crisis to Iraq since the worst of the sectarian bloodshed that followed the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003.