Frantic bid to free 30 entombed people

FRANTIC Iraqis were last night battling a race against time after discovering up to 30 people cemented into an underground vault by Saddam Hussein.

The find, made on Monday in Amara, eastern Iraq, has seen hundreds of local men trying desperately to reach those trapped, thought to be the Iraqi leader’s prisoners of conscience.

Locals say the group, who had been held captive by Saddam for opposing his regime, could be heard screaming for help as they valiantly tried to reach them. Using only primitive pick axes and sledgehammers the team of men were working round the clock to try and free those trapped. At night they operated by candlelight as their electricity had been taken out by an American bomb two weeks ago.

One of the rescuers, Mohammed Tareq, said the prisoners had been forced into the underground bunker in shackles before workers filled in the entrance with cement.

The 37-year-old said: “we are doing all we can to try and free our comrades.

“We will not stop till they are recovered whether they be dead or alive. No one knows what the conditions down there are like, but we know they must suffering.

“I just hope and pray we manage to save some of those trapped.

“This just goes to show what evil Saddam is capable of.”

Several holes have already been dug inside the former government building but so far none have showed any signs of the secret vault.

Every 10 minutes the men call a halt to their work and listen in silence hoping to hear the faint murmurs of those entombed.

They have already uncovered a number of cellars, many of which are flooded, but all have been empty. The town of Amara, on the west side of the river Tigris, 200 miles south of Baghdad, has long been known to have a strong anti-Saddam movement.

It is thought the Iraqi leader’s followers purposely choose the town in a defiant gesture to its people.

Late last night heavy plant machinery arrived at the scene in a last-ditch effort to rescue the group alive.

However, labourer Tareq conceded: “as each hour passes we are growing less and less hopeful that we will find them alive. We are working our fingers to the bone to try and rescue our comrades, but at the moment we have yet to locate where their screams were coming from. They hasn’t been anything heard for a number of hours now.”