Thousands of Egyptians are traveling to Kuwait and Iraq to bring home relatives or retrieve belongings ranging from birth certificates to mink coats. Others hope to resume old jobs or win positions vacated in the exodus of workers who fled after Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. Before they go, the Egyptians must obtain permits from Iraq's consulate in Cairo. The papers, called ``facilitating documents'' rather than visas, allow entrance to Iraq and its ``governorate of Kuwait.'' Egypt has led Arab opposition to the Iraqi conquest, and strongly rejects Baghdad's annexation of its small neighbor. But Cairo has not prevented Egyptians from going to Iraq or Kuwait. ``Some of these people are very poor,'' said an official of the Interior Ministry, which keeps track of the reverse exodus by issuing permits to Egyptians who work outside the country. ``They have no alternative but to work there. They don't care if there's a war or not. We can't stop them.'' On Wednesday, applicants milled about outside the Iraqi Consulate, awaiting their documents. ``I want to see if my school is still open,'' said Mahmoud, a mathmetics teacher at a school in Kuwait who gave only his first name. He seemed in a quandary about the journey, wondering aloud whether he should take his wife. Men waiting with him strongly advised that she stay in Egypt. On Aug. 2, about 1.5 million Egyptians worked in the two Persian Gulf states. At least 400,000 fled in the days that followed, thronging refugee camps in Jordan to await ferries to Egypt. Western and Arab countries helped by sending aircraft and other aid. But as weeks passed, returnees began feeling secure enough to worry about possessions or jobs left behind. An Egyptian in Alexandria told of a friend who had worked in Kuwait for many years but fled the advancing Iraqis, leaving his car and other belongings. He went back last month and recently returned home in the car. It was stuffed with electric appliances, silverware, china and his wife's mink coat. Interior Minister Abdel-Halim Moussa said 5,062 Egyptians left for Iraq and Kuwait through mid-September. ``Some believe they can find jobs, because many Egyptian workers left for home,'' he said in an interview published Wednesday in Al-Ahaly, a weekly newspaper. ``Others leave to bring back their belongings and documents.'' Figures at the Iraqi Consulate were far below Moussa's, and a consular officer could not explain the discrepancy. He said the office issued only about 800 permits through mid-September, with hundreds more being processed. He said most were for Egyptians returning to jobs in Kuwait. Of about 15 men and three women outside the Iraqi Consulate, all but one said they planned to bring back family members or possessions. Fearing Iraqi harassment, all asked not be identified or allowed use only of first names. ``I love Kuwait. It's like my second home,'' said a man who worked there as an expert with the Kuwait navy. ``There's no way I'm going to work there for those people (the Iraqis). I'd fight them if I could.'' Ahmed, a burly man in dark glasses, said he was returning to Kuwait for his wife and three children. They were stranded by the invasion while Ahmed was vacationing in Cairo. Closely examining an Iraqi permit handed to a teacher, Ahmed told him: ``You'd better be careful. I hear the Iraqis are keeping the teachers and not letting them leave.'' Mahmoud, one of three teachers outside the consultate Wednesday, was the only one considering working in occupied Kuwait. Ahmed and two others attempted to dissuade him. ``The atmosphere in Kuwait is terrible now, destruction and terror,'' Ahmed said. ``The Iraqis hate us.''
