IRAQI interpreters who worked for the British military in Basra for years before death threats forced them to flee the country claimed last week that they had been abandoned by their former employers.

Frightened and short of cash, they say that when they turned for help to the British embassy in Damascus, the capital of neighbouring Syria, the front door was closed in their face.

The interpreters went out on patrols and night raids, survived roadside bombs and saw colleagues kidnapped and killed while working with British units.

They were also exposed to the routine ordeal of perilous journeys to and from their family homes in civilian areas, while their employers stayed in a secure base.

“It was a horrible situation,” said Akram Moayed al-Bazwe, 20, who worked three days a week on 24-hour shifts for the British military in Basra after graduating from technical college and signing up in March 2005.

“I went to work with the British because I wanted to help them make Basra better and I wanted to make my country better,” he said.

By day Bazwe accompanied British units, helping them to speak to civilians about improving electricity and water. At night he joined them on “detention operations” — raids in which they burst into houses and arrested suspected insurgents, sometimes on the basis of answers to the questions he put.

“Sometimes there would be shooting at midnight when there is no electricity, so it is very dark. It was like the movies, only much worse,” Bazwe recalled.

He had many death threats and eventually fled with his family to Damascus after he received a letter pushed through his door that read: “This is a warning to leave your job with the British forces or we will kill you and your family.”

It was the final straw; three bullets had already been fired into his car as he drove home one day.

When Bazwe went to the British embassy in Damascus, he was turned away. No Iraqi nationals were allowed to enter, he was told, even though he could show documents proving that he had worked for the British Army.

He is now living in two cheap hotel rooms with his mother, two sisters and brother, and is rapidly running out of money because there is no work in Syria.

Loay Mohammed al-Tahar, 26, had the same bitter experience when he arrived in Damascus last month. “I went to the embassy every day for a week. I was not allowed to speak to anyone. I was so disappointed,” he said.

“I served for three years just like a British soldier and they didn’t take care of me or my family, even though I have all my documents showing I worked for the British.”

Tahar became an army interpreter in 2003, immediately after the arrival of the British in Basra. He finally left the city after a fellow interpreter and friend, Ismail, was murdered and he woke up one morning to find a text message on his mobile phone that said: “Stop walking with the British or you are dead.”

He now wants to apply for political asylum in Britain or at least to receive some sort of financial support.

“I was threatened by the Islamic militias,” Tahar said. “They killed some of my colleagues, and kidnapped others. In one house, the militiaman we were interviewing said directly to me, ‘If I see you again I will kill you’.”

He added that he had encountered many problems while trying to bridge the two cultures. “And then when I am travelling home I have to look over my shoulder to see if someone is following me,” Tahar said.

In exile in Damascus the interpreters feel isolated. They try to keep their past secret from the Syrians, because they are afraid of being identified as collaborators with the British in a hostile country.

Tahar and two fellow interpreters are now paying £175 a month for a small hotel room with a tiny television and one narrow bed. They are afraid they will soon be destitute if no assistance is forthcoming from their former employers.

Some of their colleagues have been reduced to such a desperate state that they have returned home to Iraq, apparently resigned to their fate at the hands of those who threatened them.

All the interpreters interviewed by The Sunday Times last week had reference letters from their commanding officers on official letterheads.

Issa Jafer al-Said, 25, one of Tahar’s roommates, who graduated from Basra University with a degree in English literature before working with the 1st Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, said: “We never imagined that the British could treat us like this. We face a very bleak future.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said its “contractual obligations” ended when a civilian left its employ.

Tom Porteous, the London representative of Human Rights Watch, has tried to help the men, so far without success. “I think it’s a disgrace,” he said. “These are people who worked for the British government. Not only are they not being pro-active and trying to help them, they are not even letting them into the embassy.”

All the former interpreters — about 50 are stranded in Damascus — said that Iranian-linked militias who now dominate Basra were behind the death threats.

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