News

The government yesterday accepted an Indian government offer to evacuate stranded Sri Lankans in Lebanon as the numbers waiting to get out of the war-torn areas increased.

The offer was accepted at least two days later, missing an opportunity to send some of the Sri Lankans back home earlier.

An Indian ship carrying Indian nationals from Lebanon arrived in Bombay yesterday.

A Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the Indian offer was accepted yesterday and the movement of the Sri Lankans would take place in the next few days while other options were also being discussed

The move came as an estimated 5,000 Sri Lankans made a plea to the embassy in Beirut to register them for evacuation.

Government sources said they were slow in responding to evacuation offers, because they hoped the bombing would cease and did not want to over-react.
Labour Minister Athauda Senevirate told The Sunday Times that the evacuation process would depend on the requests coming from Sri Lankans living in Lebanon over the next few days.

“We are not going to call for the evacuation of Sri Lankans, but allow the people to decide whether they want to remain there or return to Colombo,” the Minister said.

The first batch of 264 Sri Lankans who were evacuated from Lebanon via Damascus, the Syrian capital arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport last morning.

Separate discussions were in progress with the International Organisation of Migration to airlift another batch of 400 Sri Lankans. However it was not immediately clear as to who would bear the cost of the flights.

Meanwhile returnees yesterday claimed that several Sri Lankans were feared killed in the air strikes as they were aware that their colleagues were employed in some of the buildings or houses in areas that were hit by Israeli air strikes.

The Foreign Ministry and the Labour Ministry in Colombo however confirmed only one death and said they had not received any reports about any other deaths or casualties.

Returnees told The Sunday Times they had received messages about the deaths through colleagues who are employed in the southern parts of Lebanon which was facing the brunt of the Israeli air raids.

They confirmed reports that some of the Sri Lankans were stranded in the southern part of Lebanon as they could not find transport to arrive at the embassy.

Some others had been left behind by their employers who had already fled the country and wanted them to safeguard their property.

One of the main problems encountered at the Sri Lankan embassy in Beirut has been that it did not have access to the Sri Lankans living in the southern part of Lebanon.