Expatriate Healthcare News: Stranded expats to receive govt help
10/08/10 16:37
Sri Lankan expatriates stranded in Saudi Arabia are to receive help from their home country's Foreign Employment Bureau.
The bureau plans to bring home 41 expatriate workers who have been left in the Gulf country without jobs within the next few days, and has already spent more than three million rupees on the repatriation operation, according to ColomboPage.
The female Sri Lankan expats had been promised work as cleaners in Riyadh but a dispute between their agent and the hospital they were to be employed in meant they were left without hygienic accommodation or food, Arab News reported.
Six of the workers fell ill and the bureau asked the Sri Lankan embassy to help get them home.
Mr Ruhunuge, assistant general manager of the bureau, told Arab News that it has taken steps to ensure the expatriates have access to dry rations and toiletries.
"We cannot tolerate this situation for a long time. Either the sponsor has to give them employment or repatriate them home," he added.
Some 550,000 Sri Lankan expats work in the kingdom, the majority of them as domestic servants, according to Arab Times.
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