150 Westerners Reach Jordan From Iraq

Western women and children who had been detained in Kuwait and Iraq continued leaving in small groups Wednesday, while hundreds more waited anxiously for the government’s permission to leave.

At least three flights carrying more than 150 Westerners from Iraq landed Wednesday in Amman.

A French-chartered Iraqi Airways jetliner arrived with 144 women and children and one Italian man. The passengers included 63 French, 27 Italians, 23 Britons, 13 Australians, 10 Americans and nine Greeks, airport officials said.

Earlier, two scheduled Iraqi Airways jetliners landed in Amman, carrying a total of 14 Westerners.

Airport officials said seven Britons and four Americans were aboard the morning flight. The afternoon flight carried two Americans and an Austrian.

A group of foreigners flew to London from Amman early Wednesday aboard a Virgin Atlantic Airlines Boeing 747. That plane was carrying 175 refugees, according to a spokesman for airline owner Richard Branson.

The plane had carried 40 tons of supplies for tens of thousands of desperate Asian evacuees from Kuwait stranded in Jordan.

Twenty-five Americans on the London flight went on to Newark, N.J., on a Virgin Atlantic jet, said airline spokeswoman Lori Levin in New York.

In Baghdad, 306 British women and children who arrived in a seven-bus convoy from Kuwait on Tuesday night remained in the Iraqi capital Wednesday awaiting exit visas, diplomats said.

The group was not expected to leave Baghdad until today or Friday, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

British officials said 30 British women and children trying to join that convoy in Kuwait were detained, but there were no details on why they had been stopped.