Iraqis Open Crossing, Allow Kuwaitis to Flee : Refugees: An official says 500 families traveled to Saudi Arabia. The exodus had earlier slowed to a trickle.

Iraqi authorities Saturday opened the main border crossing from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia, allowing hundreds of refugees to stream into the small Saudi border town of Khafji.

Saudi authorities confirmed that the border gate, which had been closed since shortly after Iraqi troops marched into Kuwait on Aug. 2, had been opened by early afternoon and that Kuwaitis and other Arab nationals were crossing into Saudi Arabia.

It was not immediately clear how many had made the crossing. A spokesman at the governor’s office in Khafji said early today that at least 500 families had crossed by midnight Saturday. However, Saudi authorities in Dhahran said the figure was closer to 100.

“In any case, it’s very important, because now they can go out legally, whereas before they had to cross illegally,” a Saudi government spokesman said.

The spokesman at the governor’s office said an average of 40 people per hour had entered Saudi Arabia, and most were driving south to Dammam or the Saudi capital of Riyadh. “They started this afternoon, and until now they are coming,” he said.

A Saudi military spokesman, Ibrahim Sherif, said the Iraqis had closed down a commonly used illegal border crossing west of the main entrance point at Khafji and were instead allowing travelers to leave at the main border station. However, there was no evidence that the flow of refugees had increased, he said.

More than 200,000 refugees have streamed into Saudi Arabia since the Iraqi invasion, but the flow had slowed to a trickle in recent weeks after Iraqi authorities closed the border and began clamping down on those trying to escape across the desert west of the main border crossing.

Kuwaiti government officials in Taif, Saudi Arabia, said they had received unconfirmed reports from Kuwaiti resistance fighters near the border that Iraqi authorities were encouraging Kuwaitis to flee to Saudi Arabia.

They speculated that Iraqi authorities may be attempting to identify resistance fighters in Kuwait by allowing other Kuwaitis to leave. “After all the Kuwaitis leave, if any Kuwaitis stay behind, they will be identified as Kuwaiti resistance fighters,” said a spokesman in Taif.

Passports and other identity papers were reportedly being confiscated at the border.

The spokesman at the Saudi governor’s office in Khafji said there was no immediate indication of why the main border station had been opened, or why Iraqis were apparently allowing some Kuwaitis and other Arab nationals to leave.

“I asked one of them (the families) if anybody asked them to leave, and he said no. But he said, ‘I have no food, and it’s better to take my wife and children where it’s safe,’ ” the spokesman said.