Iraq Bars Kuwait Men From Fleeing With Families, Slowing Departures : Exodus: Troops order males out of cars trying to cross the border into Saudi Arabia.

Iraqi authorities on Monday refused to allow Kuwaiti men between the ages of 17 and 45 to flee to Saudi Arabia, slowing the flow of Kuwaiti refugees here to a trickle.

Immigration authorities said that fewer than 50 cars crossed into the Saudi town of Khafji on Monday through a border crossing Iraqi authorities in occupied Kuwait had unexpectedly opened on Friday. During the weekend, an estimated 7,000 fleeing Kuwaitis took advantage of the opening.

Refugees arriving in Khafji and traveling south to Dhahran said Iraqi troops were ordering men trying to leave the country to get out of their cars and in many cases forcing the women accompanying them to continue alone.

In Kuwait, they said, Iraqi authorities are ordering Kuwaitis to shave their beards, which are often a symbol of Islamic activism, and to exchange their Kuwaiti license plates for Iraqi plates. They said shopkeepers are being told to open for business or face confiscation of goods.

Soldiers at Iraqi checkpoints throughout the Kuwaiti capital have given Kuwaitis a three-day deadline, until today, to meet the requirements, according to the refugees crossing into Saudi Arabia.

“In the last two weeks they have become very nervous, maybe because of the Kuwaiti people who are resisting them,” according to one refugee who, like most, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Iraqi soldiers are raiding private homes for food and are even asking fleeing Kuwaitis at checkpoints for something to eat, another said. “At checkpoints, we gave them cheese, we gave them bread. All of them said, ‘Please, it’s not our fault,’ ” this refugee added.

“They are completely destroyed,” another refugee said of the Iraqi troops. “They say, ‘We don’t know what is our mistake. We don’t know why our ruler, why he is doing this.’ ”

In Washington, the Bush Administration expressed concern about reports that Iraqi border guards are confiscating the passports and other identity papers of the Kuwaiti citizens fleeing through the newly opened border crossing at Khafji.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called the confiscation “an ominous sign.”

“The fact that people leaving are having their travel documents taken away seems to be an implication to us that they might not be allowed to return,” he said. “If this is part of an Iraqi effort to drive Kuwaitis from their homes, it is unacceptable.”

Boucher added that “we strongly object to any move which would deny citizens and legal residents of Kuwait the right to return to their homes and jobs when the situation stabilizes.”

A Kuwaiti Airlines employee who crossed the border over the weekend said Monday he was able to get his Sri Lankan maid across by bribing an Iraqi border guard with a gold pen. Iraqis have limited passage across the newly opened border to Kuwaitis, but a few women of other nationalities have been allowed to cross if they were accompanying Kuwaiti husbands.

“Until now, I am shaking from what is going on there,” said the airline employee. “I decided to take the chance, to leave. Maybe they will put me in prison, I thought, but I figured anyway I will try.”

Saudi Arabian officials, meanwhile, already straining to accommodate the more than 200,000 Kuwaitis and other foreign nationals who have fled south in the weeks after the Aug. 2 invasion, braced Monday for the weekend’s second wave of immigrants.

Hotels in Dhahran and Riyadh are already full of Kuwaiti families, and Kuwaitis who drove into Dhahran on Monday were being told to go on to Jidda, on the other side of the country, to find accommodations.

“Frankly, we don’t know what we’re going to do, because the numbers are too high to deal with,” said a municipal official in the city of Dammam, near Dhahran.

City officials met Sunday night to decide how to handle the new wave of refugees but emerged from the meeting without a plan, the official said. “We were just going, like. . . ,” and he threw up his hands.

Many of the Kuwaitis are being housed in high-rise complexes built 14 years ago for low-income Saudi families. The complexes for many years stood virtually empty, because the intensely private Saudis were reluctant to live in such close proximity with other families, even at large discounts.

Now, housing authorities are working around the clock to install carpeting, utilities and appliances in the apartments to get them ready for Kuwaiti families.

The 33 high-rise towers in Dammam contain 1,664 apartments, of which 624 are completed so far. The remainder are scheduled to be finished by Wednesday. Kuwaiti families said 15 to 20 people are living in each six-room flat.

Saudi authorities were originally giving Kuwaiti families each a 3,000-riyal stipend (about $780) upon their arrival in Saudi Arabia, but Kuwait’s government-in-exile has taken over most direct financial assistance.

“We cannot say they are refugees,” said a Saudi official in charge of readying the low-income housing units for Kuwaitis. “They move from one house to another house. We are all family in the gulf.”

Kuwaitis not being housed in apartments or hotels are staying in foreign workers’ barracks near Saudi oil installations and industrial cities. The rest are being accommodated in refugee centers throughout the kingdom.

Staff writer Maura Reynolds contributed to this story from Washington.