Blog: Inside Iraq

Hundreds of migrant workers stranded in drab warehouses near Baghdad airport called on the US military and the United Nations for help today as their Kuwaiti contractor failed for a second day to fly them out of the country.

“America why are you silent? Human rights organisations why are you silent? United Nations where are you?” one of the workers, who are from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, texted in a message to The Times.

He was quoting from banners drawn up to show to a US television crew that managed to infiltrate the guarded compound, which is located in the secured airport zone that also houses a US military base a number of other entities.

“Our kids are going hungry, we want justice,” one of the banners read.

The men were brought to Baghdad over the past three months to work for Najlaa International Catering Services, which is a subcontractor to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a major service provider to the US Department of Defence.

Each paid up to $3,000 (£2,000) to middlemen on the promise of work as soon as they arrived. The jobs never materialized. Instead they found themselves confined to three, overcrowded warehouses surrounded by walls and with no salary. They said food and hygiene were bad, allegations the company denies.

Yesterday, after a mini-riot, five buses drove about 450 migrants to the airport to be put on flights to Dubai. Dubai is a hub for people travelling to Iraq.

The flights never left, however, because Najlaa had failed to organise connecting planes to take the men to their home countries, said Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a senior official at Iraq’s Ministry of Interior.

“Now there is talk with the manager of the company to arrange it,” he said.

Repeated attempts to call Najlaa officials for comment today failed. A woman at the company’s offices in Kuwait said that all management had travelled to Baghdad “to try to solve the problem”.

By evening time, another set of buses came to collect about 160 workers but the men refused to get on without being paid for the time they spent in Iraq and also reimbursed for the middleman fee.

“They cannot take anyone by force. They will have to take on all 900 of us,” said one of the Sri Lankan workers.

Marwan Rizk, Najlaa’s chief executive officer, told The Times yesterday that the company had decided to send everyone home because anticipated contracts had failed to materialize. He said they would each be paid a month’s salary.

Pryanatha Atkorla, 27, from Sri Lanka, was one of the men who went on the futile trip to the airport yesterday, carrying with him just two pairs of trousers and a t-shirt, all borrowed.

“We waited for three hours and then we were brought back to the accommodation,” he said, speaking by mobile phone. “Until now we do not get our passports.”

Najlaa officials took almost everyone’s passports on Tuesday on the assurance that they would facilitate the payment of salaries to the men’s home countries. Instead, the passports were never returned. No wage appears to have been paid.

“It means they are going to cheat us. We are feeling very bad,” said Mr Atkoria.

“We have spent a lot of money to come to Iraq and they have not given us even one dollar. How can we go back to our country?”

The Sri Lankan used his house as equity to borrow 2,200 dollars from the bank to pay an agent who organised a 1-year contract with Najlaa. He must repay the loan in 12 months or lose his home.

“Please try to do something,” the man said. “We are poor people … We cannot celebrate Christmas because we have no money.”

Asked about the complains regarding Najlaa, a US military spokesman said yesterday: “We take every allegation of human rights violation seriously and are looking into the issue to ascertain the facts. Until that time, we will reserve comment on the issue.”

A spokeswoman for the United Nations said she would respond to a query on the matter tomorrow.

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