Rare Mist Cloaks 5 Westerners Escaping Iraq by Boat

Three Britons and two Frenchman escaped from Iraq by small boat in a daring 25-hour voyage, British diplomats and Saudi officials said today.

It was the first report of Western men escaping in six weeks.

Guided only by a small compass and provisioned with cheese, bread, vodka and whiskey, the men were concealed by a rare mist that arose as they drifted in high seas.

The men were found Wednesday drifting in a shipping lane by the Saudi coast guard off the town of Khafji on the border with Kuwait, officials reported. They said the five were suffering the first effects of exposure.

The Britons contacted their families in England, who put them in touch with the Daily Mail newspaper.

The London paper quoted them as saying they spent 25 hours in rough seas after taking a 10-foot fiberglass boat through the marshes of southern Iraq.

“We only just made it, and we know we’re lucky,” Mike Teesdale, 40, was quoted as saying. “When we got off the boat the relief was enormous. We sat down and tried to be big men, but we all felt like crying.”

The Mail said the three Britons had worked on a key oil installation near the southern Iraqi port of Basra and that the two Frenchmen were barge masters.

Iraqis were allowed to go fishing Tuesday because of a religious holiday, so the men chose that night for their escape. They said they made their way through the Shatt al Arab estuary into the Persian Gulf.

Teesdale said the men had only a small compass to guide them and got lost several times as they tried to avoid villages and other craft.

A 10-foot swell prevented them from using their diesel engine as they tried to follow the shoreline in the gulf past occupied Kuwait.

The five worked in rotation, one on lookout, one steering and one working the bilge pump.