Concerns Rise Over Treatment of Indians in Iraq

[VolcanoJen]

Had enough bad news? Well, hold on tight... and be sure to read the whole story; the excerpt just doesn't provide enough detail.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=861776

Excerpt:

VELICHIKKALA, India (Reuters) - Indian police are hunting a jobs agent who duped poor and illiterate workers into going to U.S. army camps in Iraq where they say they ended up trapped for months working as virtual slaves.

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Interviews with those at the heart of the complaints indicate the main problems were with the contractor employing them -- on behalf of a unit of U.S. firm Halliburton -- and Iraq's harsh wartime environment and desert climate.

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Fasil Aliyarukunju and Abdul Azeez Shajahan, two day-wage Muslim butchers from Velichikkala village in the coconut and cashew groves of the southern state of Kerala, say they were tricked into going to Iraq.

They were then kept for nine months working 18 hours a day in U.S. camp kitchens, threatened with beatings and verbally abused by soldiers before their contractor employer let them go home.

They did not abuse us physically," Fasil said, referring to U.S. soldiers.

"The psychological abuse was worse," he said, sitting in a tiny cement-floored hut, the air heavy with wood smoke from cooking fires.