ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: Kidnappers in Iraq have released 11 Pakistanis, three Egyptians and two Indians who were abducted earlier this month, the foreign office in Pakistan said on Monday.

The Pakistanis, who worked with a Kuwaiti firm, went missing while travelling by bus from the southern Iraqi city of Basra to the capital Baghdad on Aug 13, foreign office spokesman said.

“We have just been informed by the Kuwaiti company that all 11 Pakistanis have been freed,” he told newsmen. They were currently in Basra and would be transported to Kuwait in the next 24 hours, the spokesman added.

Two Indians and three Egyptians abducted at the same time had also been freed, Khan said. There was no immediate confirmation from either Cairo or New Delhi.

“There were 11 Pakistanis, three Egyptians and two Indians also, they were also kidnapped. They were released only today,” he told reporters.

“The people were being bussed and they were going to Baghdad. I think (they were) close to Nasiriya when they were kidnapped.”

He reiterated Islamabad’s advice to Pakistanis not to travel to Iraq, where he said the security situation was “precarious”.

Three days earlier, Pakistan’s ambassador to Iraq narrowly survived a militant attack on his convoy. Islamabad closed its mission in Baghdad and envoy Younis Khan was evacuated to the Jordanian capital Amman.

In April an employee at the Pakistani embassy in Baghdad was abducted as he went to a mosque for evening prayers in April. He was released two weeks later.—AFP