Lankans ‘stranded’ in Iraq

2 April 2011 04:01 pm Views - 4854

A group of former Sri Lankan soldiers say they are stranded in a remote village in Iraq as their employer failed to pay their salaries for nearly 16 months.



Lalith Kumara de Silva, a member of the group of 41 former soldiers, told BBC Sandeshaya that they arrived in Iraq as private security officers for a Lebanese company involved in a construction project in Al-Amra, some 600-700km away from the capital, Baghdad.

The group of 41 retired Sri Lankan soldiers received working visa to Iraq after another Sri Lankan working in the company arranged them contracts, he said.

A security firm registered with the Iraq government, Night Bird, has issued them with official identity cards –from Ministry of Internal Affairs - after checking their qualifications.

“Even yesterday, they sent two people without paying their arrears. They were only given $100 each,” he said.

The company owes each individual more than $18,000 in salary arrears, according to Lalith Kumara de Silva.

“We were paid our salaries for few months but our employer stopped paying us after the government ended the contract as it could not meet the deadline in the housing project,” he told BBC Sinhala service.

The former Sri Lanka soldiers said an official from the Sri Lankan embassy in Lebanon, WM Premaratne, is negotiating with their employers and promised to settle the missing payments by the end of the month.

All the employees in the housing project, said de Silva, are told not to move out of the camp due to security reasons.
“Since we came to Al-Samara we have never gone out of this camp.”

As a result of the construction project going bust, the Sri Lankan employers are not even provided with food for the last week, according to Lalith de Silva.

“We are now given food by the people in the surrounding villages. And we get water from a nearby canal.”