Pretoria - The South African government on Thursday said it
was not known whether four nationals kidnapped in Iraq were alive or
dead but said it would continue efforts to secure their release.
The government was doing so through its diplomatic missions in the
Middle East and the company for which the four men were working in
Iraq, the Foreign Affairs Department said Thursday, according to a
report by the Sapa news agency.
Andre Durant, Johan Enslin, Kallie Scheepers and Hardus Greeff
were kidnapped in December while travelling in convoy north of the
Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
They had been working for SafeNet Security Services, a company
contracted by the US Department of Defence.
Five Iraqis also kidnapped in the incident, were released two days
later.
Families of the four have reportedly made an international plea to
their captors while the South African government had approached the
US-led multinational force in Iraq for assistance, the news agency
said.
There had been numerous ransom demands but no indication that the
four were still alive, according to the report.
At least 22 South African contract workers are known to have died
in Iraq, where between 4,000 and 5,000 South Africans are believed to
be working, according to a researcher at the Pretoria-based think-
tank Institute for Security Studies.
'Iraq is a very dangerous place to work,' Foreign Affairs
spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa told Sapa on Thursday.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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