KARACHI: In the past one week, around 325 Pakistani labourers and construction workers returned home from Saudi Arabia leaving eight months salaries behind.

According to a memo, Pakistanis and other foreign labourers were informed of their departure five days before they had to leave for their respective countries.

The memo shared by the human resource department at the Saudi Oger Limited specifically mentions the two afternoon flights which will take the workers back home asking them to collect their belongings by 12pm.

Karachi’s Liaquatabad received a majority of the workers. Mohammad Rafi, who is among the sacked employees at Saudi Oger Limited, and a resident of Liaquatabad’s Rajput Colony, told Dawn on the phone that workers had been coming in groups of 50 to 100 since Sept 15. “The flights started coming in on Sep 20. A majority of the workers left behind their salaries and benefits the company owed them. Some of them stayed back in the camps to protest but realised that it may not materialise,” he added.

There are about 2.6 million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia, and around 12,000 work for the construction industry in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Ta’if.

Published in Dawn September 29th, 2016