Flight Attendants Raped by Iraqis, Witness Reports

An airline flight attendant who reached Jordan on Monday said Iraqi troops stormed into a hostel in Kuwait city and raped five Kuwait Airlines flight attendants--two Britons, two Egyptians and a Filipina.

Nawal Bel Hadj, 24, of Tunisia, said in an interview that she witnessed the attacks Aug. 7, five days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

“Eight Iraqi soldiers holding machine guns stormed our hostel,” she said. “First, they asked our Indian servant for water. Then, they told him ‘Get us women, we need women, this is why we came here.’

“We were in our rooms listening to the conversation. Then other stewardesses . . . came down in the lift (elevator) to the lobby where the soldiers were. . . . The soldiers grabbed them. They made a circle around the girls and then attacked them. . . . We could not save them,” said Bel Hadj, who fled through a back door and traveled through Iraq to reach Jordan.