Some 50 Indian nurses taken from hospital in Iraqi ISIL stronghold

By Sruthi Gottipati NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Nearly 50 Indian nurses from the southern state of Kerala have been taken against their will from a hospital in the militant-controlled city of Tikrit in Iraq, India’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. At a briefing with reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin declined to say who had ordered the nurses to leave the hospital or where they were taken. “This is a situation where lives are at stake.” A senior aide to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who spoke to the nurses on Thursday, told Reuters that militants had forced the nurses to vacate the hospital and board two buses. Most of the nurses are from the south Indian state of Kerala.