Niluka’s Lebanon horror
Tortured and locked up in house amidst Israeli
bombing
By Nalaka Nonis
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.
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The burns on the foot Pix by Berty Mendis |
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.
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Niluka holding her breast on which acid had
been thrown |
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. |