Minister for Labor and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara, noted that 300,000 Sri Lankans have left the island for foreign employment.
Addressing an event to mark International Migrants Day, Sri Lankan Minister of Labor and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara said this is the highest number of Sri Lankans leaving for foreign jobs in its post-independent history.
The minister said that the remittances they send will help Sri Lanka overcome the current economic crisis.
“By today the 300,000 mark has been exceeded,” Minister Nanayakkara said on the World Migrants day on December 18.
“There is about 7 to 8 days (left in 2022) for the number to go up. I thank our officials and job agencies that helped send workers abroad through legal channels.”
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Employment Bureau had a target of 300,000 migrant workers in 2022, he said.
He said that remittances sent by Sri Lankan foreign workers abroad increased to 384.4 million U.S. dollars in November 2022.
The number has been rising steadily in the past few months and the total remittances in the first 11 months of the year are over 3.3 billion dollars, the minister said.
Tamils who have attempted to leave the island have been detained by the Sri Lankan military and then handed over to police forces where they are then remanded in court. The economic crisis has disproportionally impacted communities across the Northeast which bore the brunt of the armed conflict and require the greatest investment in infrastructure. The Northeast remains heavily militarised which has negatively impacted the Tamil population's ability to recover economically. In recent months the Sri Lankan Navy have stopped crossings of Eelam Tamils who have hoped to find refuge in India. Some vessels have made it to Tamil Nadu, where it is routine for Tamil Refugees to land on beaches across the southern state.
Last week a Tamil Refugee committed suicide Sundaralingam Kiritharan, who was aged 37 at the time of his death, was one of 303 Tamil refugees rescued by the Singapore Navy last month when their boat was in danger of sinking in waters near Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. After being rescued, the refugees, who had attempted to go to Canada by boat from Myanmar, were placed in a refugee camp in Vietnam.
After finding out that the Vietnamese authorities were making arrangements to deport them to Sri Lanka, the refugees protested vociferously. During these protests, two of the group attempted suicide on November 18. While they were both taken to hospital, Kiritharan was not able to be resuscitated. His death was announced on November 24.
Read more at EconomyNext
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