AMMAN: Due to the timely intervention of the Jordanian police, the Sri Lankan mission in Amman was able to rescue its staff who were held hostage by the distressed Sri Lankan workers in Jordan on Tuesday.
According to sources from the Ministry of Foreign Relations, the Labour Staff of the Embassy of Sri Lanka who visited the Camel and Wega factory in Karak to look into the welfare of Sri Lankan migrant workers this Tuesday morning were held hostage for over five hours by a section of the migrant workers who are unemployed requesting that they be immediately repatriated to Sri Lanka.
The Jordanian Police was called in to defuse the situation at the factory and for the Embassy officials to be released.
The Sri Lankan migrant workers claim, it’s been months since they were forced out of employment due to COVID-19 and have been stranded in Jordan with no way of returning home to Sri Lanka.
“Right now, there is a small group here. But there are many more in the hotels. It’s been 05 months since the factory was closed down. The employer has failed to compensate us.” said one migrant worker adding ” We only receive two meals a day. The embassy asked us to come here to solve the issue. But when we arrived here, they tried to evade us. But we didn’t allow them to go away without solving our issues. The embassy officials called the Jordanian police and they fired tear gas on us. Almost two dozen workers have been hospitalized. “We do not want to die here. Please take us back to Sri Lanka,” the female workers said.
The Deputy General Manager of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment,Mangala Randeniya told Colombo Times that the Lankan mission in Amman has been looking after the interests of the workers. He recalled that the Embassy officials had distributed 375 dry ration & toiletry packs at the same factory on July 22.
He said a group of personnel from the Sri Lankan Embassy in Amman,had visited the site to resolve the problem of some 350 garment workers.
The incident took place when efforts were made to control the situation.
Adding the situation was brought under control, he said the migrant workers were given allowances to meet their immediate needs and measures are underway to repatriate them to Sri Lanka.
