Sri Lankan migrants back home after Iraq ordeal

Geneva, Feb 7: Seventeen Sri Lankan migrant workers who paid 2,000 dollars each for lucrative jobs in the Gulf have returned home safely after discovering they had been taken to Iraq instead, an international aid agency said today.

The men had signed contracts with a Sri Lankan employment agency to be domestic or textile workers in the United Arab Emirates. They arrived in Dubai in mid-December only to be put unknowingly on a plane for Arbil, northern Iraq.

Their passports taken by their agent, they were stranded in a house with no water, heating or sanitation in winter weather, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

''It was up to two weeks before they actually realised that they were not in a country in the Gulf but actually in Iraq,'' IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya told a news conference in Geneva.

''They insisted on going back home to Sri Lanka but their demands were met with abuse and threats, amongst which was the threat of being taken to Baghdad and dumped there ...'' A month later, the migrants were being moved when they noticed a sign for a United Nations office in Arbil, she said.

The next day they managed to reach the UN office that handed them over to IOM. IOM organised their papers and safe return home to Colombo yesterday, said the spokeswoman.

''Although they face difficult times upon returning home because obviously they've come back home with no jobs and significantly poorer -- despite having gone through official channels to get their jobs abroad -- they were very happy to get back home after more than six weeks,'' Pandya said.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, IOM has evacuated more than 6,000 foreigners in difficult situations under a programme funded by the US State Department.

''Their story has highlighted that migrant labour is commanding a premium in Iraq ... The demand for labour is encouraging smuggling activities and abuse with some recruitment agencies being complicit in the practice,'' Pandya said.

A group of Nepalese migrant workers fell into a similar trap two years ago and had to be evacuated from Iraq, IOM said.

It declined to identify the Sri Lankan agency which had offered the workers their contracts.

''The men were clearly upset at the situation their recruitment agency back home had put them in,'' said IOM's Vincent Houver, responsible for evacuations from Iraq.

Reuters