MAJORITY OF THE 80,000 MIGRANT WORKERS FROM SRI LANKA
ARE STRANDED IN LEBANON AS AT LEAST ONE SRI LANKAN WOMAN IS KILLED BY ISRAELI BOMBING
(By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles)
As the seventh day of the Israeli bombing raids continued devastating Lebanon at least killing one Sri Lankan domestic aid the majority of the 80,000 Sri Lankan migrant workers were stranded in the country since they could not reach their country’s embassy for help or find a way out to a safer haven.
The Lebanese news website Nahrnet said, “In the early hours of Tuesday, a woman, her two daughters and Sri Lankan maid were killed and four others wounded in an air strike on their villa in the coastal city of Tyre.”
It did not reveal the names of the dead who were killed by the Israeli bombing of this civilian house.
The Sri Lankan embassy in Beirut, Lebanon complained due to lack of resources and the complete breakdown of roads and communications in the country they could not get in touch with their countrymen or move them out of the country.
In Lebanon, even if some mode of transport is found later to send them back home, embassy officials said, that a great number of those migrant workers were without any valid documents like passports or visas and those travel documents should be completed immediately for an evacuation. That, the sources said, made the matters more complex.
Some without visas were in detention camps. The embassy officials appealed to the Lebanese authorities, to free all, due to the prevailing conditions of bombing. Some have been released. But the Lebonon government did not release hundred percent of all Sri Lankans in detention. They said the appeal has been forwarded to higher authorities for a final decision.
The great number of the Sri Lanka migrant workers was working as domestic aids all over the country. Some preferred to stay in the houses where they are employed. Others needed the permission of their employers to leave since they were employed under contracts. Some employers did not want to release their servants to be sent back home. The Sri Lanka embassy also has discussed this matter with some employment agencies too, to help some leave the country.
The Sri Lanka embassy said that all centers of transport like harbors and airports are inaccessible due to the war situation. The only way out, is Syria through which, the Indian Embassy barely managed to send two bus loads of migrant workers to be sent home later.
The Sri Lanka embassy was able to help those who came to the embassy for help and those who were released from the detention camps by sending them to a humanitarian refugee center managed by Caritas where they are housed now.
The Sri Lanka Embassy said, they have sought the assistance of the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration and the humanitarian organization called Caritas to send the Sri Lankans home. Meantime, the embassy also is preparing travel documents of those who do not possess them and had been in Lebanon illegally for a long time.
