TORONTO - Families and friends of two Canadian hostages in Iraq are waiting with rising dread as the clock ticks down on a grim deadline set by the kidnappers.
Despite increasingly urgent pleas for the safe release of the Christian peace activists, there has been no visible sign of progress toward averting the kidnappers' threat to murder the hostages if their demands are not met by Thursday.
Prime Minister Paul Martin declared the safety of the captives "overwhelmingly the No. 1 priority" as the government put out a statement that it was willing to make contact with anyone who could help secure their freedom.
The kidnappers, who call themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigades, snatched Jim Loney of Toronto and Harmeet Sooden, formerly of Montreal, along with Briton Norman Kember and American Tom Fox at gunpoint 11 days ago.
In video seen on Al-Jazeera news last Friday, the abductors denounced the captives as spies who would be killed unless the Americans and Iraqis free detainees they are holding by Thursday.
In another excerpt from the video aired by the British Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday, two of the captives urged the United States and Britain to leave Iraq.
Despite an earlier report from the BBC that direct contact had been made with the kidnappers, Rollins said that as far he knew, that hadn't happened. He described the situation as heart-breaking.
Close relatives, who were gathering at the family home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., planned to appeal directly for his safe release at a news conference in the northern Ontario city on Wednesday.
"We just want everyone to know my brother is there doing peaceful things (and) never meant to cause any problems," said Loney, who flew to Ontario from Vancouver with his wife and their brother on Monday.
Rollins and two other members of the Christian group in Baghdad issued their first direct appeal to the kidnappers Tuesday, expressing sympathy for the plight of Iraqis and condemning the U.S. and British governments for their actions.
"We are trying to be that force: to speak for justice, to advocate for the human rights of Iraqis, to look at an Iraqi face and say, 'My brother, my sister.' "
With supportive calls for the captives' freedom flowing in from Muslims and others around the world, Rollins said the group thought it was their turn to make an appeal.
In Ottawa, the federal government called for the safe release of the hostages shortly after senior British and U.S. officials made comments of their own.
Terrorism expert Eric Margolis said the "most proven" way of gaining freedom for the hostages was to combine appeals from important Sunni figures in the Middle East and "bribes through intermediaries."
"Iraq's a small place and I'm sure everybody knows everybody else in there and it is possible to find a way to these people," said Margolis, who noted there are about 20,000 political prisoners being held in Iraq.
Martin, who had previously denounced the kidnapping as a "callous act of terrorism against innocent people," said simply that the safety of the hostages was paramount.
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