Six Lankan youth,detained, beaten, not given food and wages and forced to work in a farm run in a desert near the border with Iran in the state of Kuwait have been rescued with great effort and sent home.
The youth had arrived at the BIA at 03.30 am yesterday on board a Jazeera Airways flight J-9551 from Kuwait, Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau sources said adding that their officials had taken the youths to their homes.
All of them are residents of Kinniya in Trincomalee, and had gone for these jobs in Kuwait through an illegal broker from their home area. They had been employed in a farm run by a Sheikh in Kuwait.
The operation to rescue them had been arranged following a telephone call made by the group of Sri Lankans from this farm to the Sri Lankan Embassy in Kuwait during the night.
It was not an easy task to rescue the Sri Lankans who were detained in this farm in the difficult desert area where there are no roads.
It is reported that a special military operation was launched with the support of a Major General, the head of Kuwait’s highest security forces, to deal with the influence of the powerful Sheikh of the State of Kuwait and the difficulties in the surroindings.
Also, with the assistance of the chief security officer and the Kuwaiti government, it was made possible to obtain their travel documents to despatch the group home.
Abdul Halim, the second diplomatic officer of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Kuwait, and Janaka Samarasekara, the third secretary, also have helped to rescue mission.
At present, three other youth also from Kinniya, who were kept in the farm in this manner, have now come to Sri Lanka and with the information elicited from them, the Trincomalee Police are investigating the illegal broker who sent them there.