Relatives fear worst for missing Iraqi hostages

BAGHDAD, Nov 15 (Reuters) Families of Iraqi civil servants still missing a day after men in police uniform snatched them in broad daylight said today they feared the worst for their loved ones.

''We're already receiving mourners at our home,'' said the father of one of those abducted yesterday from a Higher Education Ministry building in central Baghdad.

''Every day I used to watch the news and hear about all these bodies found. I feared the day would come for my son,'' said the man, who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.

''The last time I saw him was in our garden when he came to visit me. I'm sure the next place I see him will be the morgue,'' he wept.

The missing man, like three other missing employees whose relatives spoke to Reuters, is a Sunni. The only person released who was identified by officials is a Shi'ite. Senior officials continued to decline comment on suspicions those behind the raid were sectarian Shi'ite militiamen in league with the police.

Several senior policemen are being interrogated, however.

Utter confusion reigned in government and security circles over how many people were seized -- somewhere between two dozen and 150, according to officials -- and how many were released.

''We have heard nothing of him so far,'' Tareq Hassan, another Sunni, said of his younger brother Jabar, 30.

''Everything we hear is contradictory -- some say seven have been released, some say 20 and some say most. But no one even knows how many were taken so how can they say 'most'?'' he said.

''Since last night we've been trying to get in touch with at least one of these people who are supposed to have been freed.'' He said he'd spoken to a woman colleague of his brother who had had no word of her missing husband and son, also Sunni.

''They were blindfolded and led away,'' Hassan said. ''I'm very worried about him. I don't know if he's alive or dead.'' FACTIONAL CONFLICTS Spokesmen for the prime minister and the Interior Ministry insisted that ''most'' of those abducted were freed. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said as few as 25 people may have been snatched. His spokesman said yesterday up to 50 were missing.

But Basil al-Khatib, chief spokesman for the Higher Education Ministry, whose building was systematically cleared of male staff and visitors yesterday morning, said between 100 and 150 were taken and only about 40 had been released.

At the building in central Baghdad today, there was little sign of activity and staff appeared to have stayed away.

Some of those released said they were taken to Sadr City, a Shi'ite militia stronghold, Higher Education Minister Abd Dhiab said. Dhiab himself is a Sunni and, in the factional conflicts typical of Iraq's coalition government, that may have made his staff more of a target for sectarian Shi'ite militiamen.

One staff member who escaped capture because he had stepped out on an errand, said he had returned to see what he thought were gunmen checking identity cards of their hostages, seemingly dividing Sunnis from Shi'ites, judging by their names.

The witness, himself a Sunni, said today that, having telephoned around his colleagues, it seemed many were missing. Naming one freed hostage as Yahya Alwan, the unit's Shi'ite assistant manager, spokesman Khatib quoted him as saying: ''They beat us and insulted us and after that they freed us.'' In previous mass kidnappings, some hostages have been released -- or tortured and killed -- depending on their sect.

REUTERS PB PM1744