Garden Grove Family Worries About Member Trying to Get Out of Kuwait

While several Orange County families torn apart by the Persian Gulf crisis have now been reunited, one local family is still anxiously awaiting word on a loved one trying to get out of Kuwait.

Awni Younis, a 43-year-old businessman, is one of the last people from Orange County--perhaps the last--known to remain in the Middle East against his will.

Younis’ wife, son and two daughters were allowed to leave Kuwait and return to Garden Grove in September after more than a month of captivity when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein decided to release women and children. But the husband, a U.S. citizen born in the Middle East, was forced to stay behind, holed up in a house he owns in Kuwait with relatives who live there.

Hussein announced last Thursday that he is allowing all Westerners to leave the region. But even before that, Younis had called his family in Garden Grove and told them that he expected to be able to leave soon.

Before the family could get any details, the telephone call was cut off and the family has not heard from him since.

“I haven’t heard anything, which means he’s most likely still in Kuwait,” said Younis’ wife, Kazuco Younis. “We’re just waiting. He told me he wants to come home for Christmas, so I believe he’s doing everything he can just to get out.”

Since the call, it has been an especially tense time at the Younis home, according to Younis’ 14-year-old son, Abdullah.

“(Monday) night, I was flipping out,” Abdullah said. “I was in my room and I’d finished my homework and I couldn’t sleep and wanted to call him and just say, ‘Get out!’ It’s hard to believe this is happening to him.

“I was worried so much. You get so anxious. You know he’s going to get out, but you start saying ‘when, when?’ ” Abdullah said.

Added Younis’ 68-year-old mother, Rose, who lives in San Jose and is staying with the family in Garden Grove: “We’re all very worried and just want him to come home soon. I can’t wait to see him.”

Abdullah said his father has been able to travel with only limited restrictions around Kuwait--where he works as general manager of a trading company--and into Iraq. But he has been stymied in efforts to get an exit visa.

In addition to Younis’ family, at least three Orange County men who had been employed in Kuwait have been freed since October. The last came this week when Gene Lovas, a 45-year-old construction superintendent for the Bechtel Corp. returned home to Westminster on Monday.