Singh, Akbar to negotiate for duped Indians stranded in Saudi, Kuwait

NEW DELHI: India is sending two ministers of state, VK Singh and MJ Akbar to negotiate with Saudi and Kuwait authorities after over 800 Indians were found to be starving in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. For the past three days, the Indian embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah have been distributing food provisions to them. The men have been stranded, kept in quasi-detention, without being paid.After one of the men made an appeal in a video tweet to Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, stating their terrible conditions, officials from the Indian consulate in Jeddah travelled to the Shumaisi camp to distribute food to the Indian workers. Officials said, the men were working for a local company, but a few months ago, the company shut down. The workers were moved to the camp, and they were apparently paid for a while. But soon the Lebanese owners of the company disappeared leaving the workers in the camp, without money or any income. The al-Shumaisi camp where the men are kept is a kind of detention centre, which has been the focus of human rights activists.Swaraj has deputed VK Singh, minister of state to travel to Saudi Arabia to address issues of hundreds of Indian workers left stranded and without recourse in several “camps” in that country. She tweeted the Indian embassy would continue to serve food to the workers, adding she would be monitoring it hourly. “We have asked @IndianEmbRiyadh to provide free ration to the unemployed Indian workers in Saudi Arabia,” she tweeted.“My colleagues @Gen_VKSingh will go to Saudi Arabia to sort out these matters and @MJakbar will take up with Kuwait and Saudi authorities. “I assure you that no Indian worker rendered unemployed in Saudi Arabia will go without food. I am monitoring this on hourly basis,” she said.The ministers have been tasked with finding a way out for the workers’ financial issues. Essentially, their salary arrears have to be logged as a legitimate claim from the company. The workers could have probably returned earlier but they had stayed on in the hope of getting some of their salary arrears from a company, which has gone belly-up. “As a result our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are facing extreme hardship,” she said, adding while the situation in Kuwait is “manageable”, matters are much “worse” in Saudi Arabia.Apart from these 800 in Al-Shumaisi camp, officials said there were over 3000 Indian workers detained in other camps. The Indian government, they said would be able to bring them back at relatively low cost in the coming weeks- from August 5 India will be sending planeloads of Haj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, which will return empty. They could then bring back these workers to India and to their families.