Hundreds From Telangana Stranded In Iraq; Ex-Envoy Suresh Reddy Sent To Oversee Help

The helpline setup by Telangana Government received around a 100 calls in the first few hours from anxious families of those who are working in Iraq. Almost all of them are workers engaged in construction industry. However, there details can not be verified with embassy in Iraq as they are unregistered and didn’t complete due formalities. Workers who returned from Iraq recently say there are around 1000 workers in Kurdistan, which is a safer place than Mosul, which is presently in severe strife. However, it is hard to determine the exact number of workers right now as they are unregistered workers and often illegal immigrants, who risked their way to Iraq via other gulf countries rather than directly from India. The reason is believed to be that India doesn’t allow unskilled labor to fly to Iraq. Lure of better pay took them there into the thriving Oil and Construction industry.  Most of the workers from Telangana hail from Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Adilabad and Medak. They have been involved right from the days of building the new US Embassy in Baghdad in 2007.

The Kerala Govt. too is in touch with Centre over nurses and workers from it’s State. The Indian embassy is assuring there are no untoward incidents till now with Indians and India has sent it’s ex-ambassador to Iraq Suresh Reddy to Iraq to coordinate the rescue of Indians stranded there. There are estimated 18000 Indians in Iraq.