Evacuees tell of fire, death

Press, 26 September 1980, Page 6

Evacuees tell of fire, death

NZPA London Europeans evacuated from the Gulf combat zone reached their home countries yesterday with tales of fire, death, and destruction at Iraq’s Basra petrochemical complex during air strikes by Iranian fighter-bombers.

Fifteen Britons, some of them without even hand luggage, arrived at London after having escaped via Kuwait.

Kenneth Doerr reported that there were “about 30 deaths” when Iranian United States-built F 4 Phantom jets made a rock-et-firing strafing pass at a motor-pool garage and foreign staff housing quarters.

“In the motel and in the American accommodation there were about 30 deaths,” Mr Doerr said. “Some of the people from the hotel that was hit saw lumps of flesh among the wreckage.” He said that although the staff had been told to expect evacuation, the early-morning raid on Tuesday “caught everyone unawares.”

A Scotsman, Neil Ferguson, said, “It all happened at six in the morning, with some men at work, some at breakfast, and some in bed.” Alan Martin said that Britons headed for the Kuwait frontier in “buses, trucks, pick-ups, and anything else we could lay our hands on — anybody who could drive went behind the wheel.” “Some of us had to leav v behind money and clothes, but the main thing was to get to safety,” he said. In Rome, where 252 Italian technicians and their dependents were flown home from temporary safety in • Kuwait, some witnesses said the Basra petrochemical complex and the military airport had been destroyed by Iranian bombing raids on Monday and Tuesday. Rosanna Lapurso, aged 37, said that after the first explosions on Monday she headed across the desert toward the Kuwait frontier with her husband and their two little girls. Looking back, she said: “The refinery area looked like a giowing furnace.” Turned back at the border with other escapees for lack of visas, they slept in the desert before returning to Basra the next day, “but when we saw all the destruction we turned right around again, and this time the Kuwaitis let us in,’’ Mrs Lapurso said.