The Foreign Ministry has said its mission in Islamabad is looking into reports that some Nepalis were among 60 foreign workers abducted by Islamic militants in Iraq.

Associated Press, citing a Turkish private news agency, reported on Wednesday that militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) seized the group near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, where they were building a hospital. It said 15 of the abducted workers are Turkish nationals, with others hostages from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Turkmenistan. The agency based its report on an unnamed worker who was reportedly freed by the militants.

The Foreign Ministry could not immediately confirm the report but said its embassy in Pakistan, which also looks after the Iraq affairs, was investigating. An estimated 20,000 Nepalis work in Iraq, mostly in areas unaffected by the fighting between Isil and the Iraqi national army.

Meanwhile, another news report from New Delhi said that 40 Indian construction workers had been kidnapped in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, which fell to Sunni insurgents last week. Isil fighters, who aim to establish a Muslim caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, launched their revolt by seizing Mosul and have since swept through the Tigris valley towards Baghdad.

Published on: 19 June 2014 | The Kathmandu Post