The wives of four South African men abducted on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, nearly three years ago have made an emotional plea for help to President Jacob Zuma.

Speaking to the media in Pretoria on Thursday the women cried as they spoke of their sadness and hope that they might one day find out what had happened to their husbands ? whether they were dead or alive.

"As the wives, we are here to plead for help. Would someone out there please show compassion and human kindness," said Marie Enslin, whose husband Johann was kidnapped on 10 December 2006 along with Hardus Greef, Callie Scheepers and Andre Durant.

"We are sincerely appealing to our new leader Mr Jacob Zuma to assist us and our children."

Referring to the Koran, Enslin said it read that husbands and wives were each other's garments and in the Bible they were each other's convents.

"Our garments and our convents have been missing for 1074 days," she said.

The men were working for the private security operations company Safenet when they disappeared.

This Christmas would be the fourth she and their four children were without her husband, said Enslin.

'A black hole in the heart'

"Whether dead or alive, the stress of living and missing loved ones is like a black hole in the heart. Please release them," she appealed to the men's captors.

"We need closure. If they are dead, God forbid, please be compassionate and hand over their remains so that we can have closure."

Retha Scheepers echoed her fellow wives' prayers that they needed to know what had happened to the men.

"We [my family and I] don't know where he [Callie] is and every morning I wake up and think today is the day I'm going to get good news or bad news, and at night, nothing.

"We were married for one year and two months, I haven't really got a marriage beyond the honeymoon stage. My family is broken because their father isn't here," she said.

Elmarie Greef said Safenet had promised to "unconditionally" support the women financially, however this had stopped when they went to the media.

"As we started speaking to the media... in December we did not get paid. They said we must declare our men dead and claim from the US government," said Enslin.

In a statement shortly after the payments stopped, Safenet said this was no longer the responsibility of the company, which had done more than enough to help.

Go to page two to read about one wife's brief telephone call from her missing husband...