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A housemaid whose home town is Miriswatte in Bentota is one among thousands of Sri Lankan housemaids who underwent horrifying psychological trauma because of the war in Lebanon. However in her case added to the mental anguish suffered because of the war she had allegedly been physically tortured by her employer in Lebanon to stop her fleeing in fear of the Israeli bombing.

M.A. Niluka (20) alleges she was beaten and acid thrown on her, starved, denied medicine and her wages by her employer who had locked her inside her house and left her alone there while bombs fell in the neighbourhood.

Niluka who finally managed to return to Sri Lanka on Thursday after having reached the Sri Lankan embassy in Beirut recounted her dreadful experience.

She is still suffering from the burn injuries inflicted on her right leg, breast and some other areas of her body as a result of the acid throwing. She had gone abroad on December 14 last year.

“When the bombings started I repeatedly requested my female employer to send me to the Sri Lankan embassy in Beirut but she flatly refused and asked me to give her 2000 dollars if I wanted to go there. It was only a 15-minute drive from the airport to where I was working and it was very scary as I constantly witnessed bombs being dropped close to our area”, she said.

She said her employer told her that she cannot be sent back to Sri Lanka unless she completed her two-year term and added that she must also die with the rest of them.

Niluka said she kept on asking her employer to take her to the embassy and one morning about three weeks ago she was beaten by her employer and her son and consequently she fell unconscious.

“The woman and her youngest son started beating me when I complained that I wanted to go home. I had become unconscious after the assault and when I gained consciousness I felt a severe pain in most parts of my body. I realised then that they had burnt me while I was unconscious”, she tearfully said.

Niluka’s right leg, breast and some other parts of her body had been burnt because of acid allegedly thrown by her employer and her son.

She alleged she was neither given medicine for her injuries nor provided with food for five days.

“They didn’t bother to treat my injuries and also didn’t give me any food except water for five consecutive days but at the same time I was forced to do my usual work”, she said.

According to Niluka her employer had finally decided to take her to the Sri Lankan embassy as her wounds were festering, while reprimanding her not reveal to the embassy authorities anything of what happened at her house.

She also alleged her employer withheld her wages for the last two months and she only possessed her passport when she was taken to the Sri Lankan embassy.

“I didn’t have anything with me except my passport. Some other housemaids gave me some clothes and one was generous enough to give me US $ 20”, she said.

After being in the embassy for three days and in Damascus for three more days, Niluka returned to Sri Lanka on a SriLankan airlines flight on Thursday and went to her home in a three-wheeler paying the fare with the Rs. 1,000 given her by Caritas Sri Lanka.

She said the doctor in Damascus who treated her told her she had been burnt by acid and that her wounds had festered.

She added that the employer’s husband was later arrested by the Lebanese police for torturing her.

She also said she was not the only Sri Lankan who underwent physical suffering because of the war.

She said she knew a girl from Anuradhapura who seriously injured her legs after she jumped from a tall building while fleeing in fear of the bombing and a man from Panadura who had head injuries.

She said the only reason for her to leave her child and husband and go to seek employment abroad was to earn some money to buy a land and build her own home but the war had dashed all her hopes.