ALAPPUZHA: A large number of Keralite drivers being recruited by travel agencies for U.S. logistics companies based in Kuwait are being forced by their employers to cross over to Iraq without proper documents, say those who returned after service in Iraq.

E. James, a native of Areekkara near Uzhavoor in Kottayam district, a driver who returned home after serving Public Warehousing Company (PWC) in Kuwait for six months, says the promise given to drivers by recruiters is that they need to transport materials for the U.S. army only up to the Kuwait border. U.S. army drivers will takeover the vehicles from there.

Speaking to The Hindu at Ashik Manzil, Ambalappuzha North panchayat in the district, which is the home of M.K. Ashraf, a driver of PWC now languishing in Iraqi jail, Mr. James said he and Mr. Ashraf went to Kuwait together but he returned after six months because of the inhospitable conditions there.

Once drivers join duty, the companies demand that they cross the Kuwait borders and travel deep into Iraqi territory to deliver goods to U.S. military camps. Those who resist are summarily dismissed and returned to their countries, he says.

He says there would be only one driver for a vehicle and no separate navigator. A majority of drivers of the U.S. logistics companies in Kuwait are Keralites. The rest are from Pakistan, Turkey and Afghanistan.

Mr. James says the huge trailers of logistics companies which move in convoys with the protection of the U.S. military have to face the ire of Iraqi people often. Incidents of a part of the convoys getting lost in the deserts are common and once local people realise that they are military vehicles they would attack it.

According to him, even if the Iraqi police save the drivers of such vehicles it would take weeks to complete the formalities and deliver goods to the destined camps.

Recounting an incident in which he lost his way in Iraq, Mr. James said a trailer in front of him, driven by a Turkish national, lost its way and he followed it. ``We finally arrived at the troubled Mosul town in northern Iraq where the trailers were surrounded by angry locals.'' A little boy threw an iron ball at him and the glass panes of the vehicle were completely destroyed. ``Fortunately, I was not harmed.''

``In the meantime, the Iraqi police arrived and saved us.'' He said that though the Iraqi police took them to a U.S. camp nearby, they did not get entry into the camp and had to wait outside the camp risking an attack from local people. ``We had to go from camp to camp for around a month before we could return to Kuwait,'' he says.

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