Police protection for Lanka's diplomatic missions
Agitated migrant workers demand repatriation as pandemic spreads in the Gulf
Local Police have been deployed at Sri Lanka’s missions in Seychelles, the Maldives and Kuwait to “protect” diplomats from Sri Lankan migrant workers who are incensed at not being able to return home.
The Ministry of Foreign Relations has also informed authorities, including President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, that there was considerable pressure on certain missions abroad from Sri Lankans and that police protection was obtained in places.
Many of these workers have lost jobs and accommodation owing to the pandemic and barely have food to eat. A large number are also deemed “illegal” under the stringent labour laws of host nations in the Gulf and rarely receive medical treatment if they contract the virus. COVID- 19 has been spreading among migrant workers, including those who had been housed in amnesty and deportation camps in Kuwait before being flown to Sri Lanka on May 20.
In Kuwait alone, there are 16,300 Sri Lankans who are deemed “vulnerable” and want to come home, official sources said. There are 665 such Sri Lankans in Qatar, 327 in Saudi Arabia and 414 in the United Arab Emirates. There are a further 178 in Israel, 374 in Bahrain, 602 in Jordan and 123 in Lebanon. The number in the Maldives is 4,508.
These figures do not include students and other categories. When all those are added, around 41,000 still desire repatriation.
Meanwhile, at a meeting of the COVID-19 Task Force this week, virologists pointed out that, of the three strains of the virus now identified, the one in Kuwait was more virulent and contagious than what Sri Lanka has so far experienced.
At the time of going to press, 321 out of 466 Kuwait returnees have tested positive for the virus. Some samples are being sent to a lab in Hong Kong for confirmation about the more virulent strain.
Two more hospitals have been opened exclusively for COVID-19 patients. They are in Teldeniya and Hambantota. A possibility is also being looked at of using a ship, possibly anchored off Trincomalee Harbour, as a quarantine ship.
A Kuwaiti returnee quarantining at the Minneriya camp said that a group of 70 men returned on the first flight together. Of them, 48 have now tested positive for the virus but none had any symptoms.
However, one man who had fever in Kuwait but was nevertheless placed on the flight has tested negative.
This returnee, who did not wish to be named, has worked in a club in Kuwait which suspended operations with the lockdown there. He took advantage of the amnesty but his wife, an uncle, sister and brother-in-law are still in Kuwait on valid contracts, living in rented accommodation. None of them are receiving any pay from their jobs.
He spent 20 days in an army camp organised by the Kuwait Government for amnesty- seekers and another seven days in a school. He thinks that his group may have contracted the virus from bedding that some Egyptians had used before them.
The risk of getting ill with COVID-19 in Kuwait, he said, was that they are not accepted in hospital. “A friend had it and spent two days in hospital before being told to go home and drink Paracetamol and vitamins,” he related. “Now his mother has got, and she’s also at home.”
Some Sri Lankans left behind in Kuwait are in a safe house provided by the Embassy, he said: “Others are scattered all over the place without passports, on roads, wherever they can find.”
On April 21, more than 2000 of them converged on the Embassy requesting emergency travel documents so that they could avail themselves of the amnesty. They were turned away.
“That is why they are helpless today,” the returnee said. “First they went to the camp where the Kuwaiti authorities were accepting amnesty applications. But a large number had no passports so they were told secure emergency documents. That’s why they all went to the Embassy gate.”
“Instead of issuing the documents, the Embassy called the police and they sent some buses to take the people away and dump them here and there,” he continued. “A friend called from there and asked if I could try and trace a woman who was at the Embassy but now is missing. We don’t know where she is.”
“Today, I spoke to an aunty who was working in a salon which is now closed,” he said. “She said that she was going to see if there is food being distributed anywhere so that she could get some.”
“If they got the travel documents that day, the Kuwaiti Government would have sent them all back at their expense, just as they did with us,” he pointed out.