TORONTO (CP) - Families and friends of two Canadian hostages in Iraq waited with rising dread Tuesday as the clock ticked down on a grim deadline set by the kidnappers.
"It's really become a waiting game," Greg Rollins, a colleague of the hostages, told The Canadian Press from Baghdad. "Slowly, slowly you do become more tense as you try to anticipate what will happen or what might happen." 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.
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