The first of three Russian planes evacuating former Soviet citizens returning home after a spate of hostage takings in Iraq took off from Baghdad on Thursday with 158 civilians on board, officials said.
Hundreds of Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians were expected to leave on Thursday and Friday, although some said they would stay and continue working in Iraq, where insurgents are reported to be holding at least 40 foreigners hostage.
The first Russian cargo jet with energy consultants and repair workers on board left on Thursday destined for Moscow, the Emergencies Ministry said in Moscow.
All 376 employees of the largest Russian contractor in Iraq, the Technoprom energy firm, “arrived at 7am [local time] at Baghdad airport”, a spokesperson for the company said.
Besides Russians, they included citizens from the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and Tajikistan, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The evacuations followed a brief abduction this week of nine Russian and Ukrainian nationals working for another Russian energy firm in Iraq, Interenergoservis.
The kidnapped men were released less than a day after being snatched when their abductors learned they were from Russia, which vehemently opposed the 2003 United States-led invasion of Iraq.
The hostage taking prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry to advise its citizens to leave Iraq, even though Moscow stressed this did not mean that Russia was pulling out of a country in which it has had interests since the Soviet era.
A total of 553 Russians and 263 nationals of other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Belarus, are eligible to be evacuated on Moscow’s planes.
But not everyone working for Russian firms in Iraq was electing to leave the war-torn country, although Moscow again advised its citizens to leave the country because of growing risks.
“It is increasingly risky to remain in Iraq,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency.
He added that “unfortunately, [the conflict] is costing the lives of more and more people”.
Officials at the Interenergoservis firm, whose employees were taken hostage, said that only a few dozen of its 365 employees in Iraq had so far declared their intention to leave.
“The situation is not clear. We would like to find an opportunity to work there. Everything depends on the situation,” said Alexander Rybinsky, executive director at Interenergoservis.
He said that so far only up to 50 had said they wanted to leave.
Both Technoprom and Interenergoservis had been working on reconstructing power stations in Iraq.
And officials in Iraq said they needed Russian help to repair their equipment because only former Soviet countries had the equipment and parts to repair its shattered electricity system.
“Our equipment is old and was built by the Soviet Union,” Bassim Anton, an official with Iraq’s industries federation, said in Baghdad on Wednesday. “Only the Russians are capable of reconstructing them.” — Sapa-AFP
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