A couple of hundred construction workers from three north Telangana districts being held captive by their company managements at Erbil city in northern Iraq, some 500 km away from Baghdad, are anxiously awaiting help to come back home at the earliest.
Since the ration available at their camps is fast depleting, they are getting panicky. With their managements threatening to retain their passports and refusing to provide money to travel back home, the workers can only make calls to their folks.
Not enough food“We were retrenched 15 days ago and our company remained closed due to cross-fire somewhere else in our area. The food stock available with us now will hardly last another 10 days. We want to come back soon,” says 27-year-old Bhoomula Rajanna of Jennaram in Adilabad district who is in a camp at Erbil.
Talking to The Hindu over phone, he said that he had gone to the place 13 months ago through an employment agency and had been working as a construction worker. “We have 250 workers from Adilabad, Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts in Kirkuk. Among us, only ten belong to Nizamabad,” he said. In an email, he said that they were trapped in the place and said the management had left them in the lurch.
“We are told the companies will not reopen in the near future,” he said and appealed to the Chief Minister of Telangana to come their rescue.
