(COLOMBO) – Kuwait has offered a three-month amnesty period for Sri Lankans who have overstayed their visas to leave the oil-rich desert kingdom or face prosecution, a senior official with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) said on Tuesday.
Sri Lankans who arrived for work in Kuwait and those who have fled from their workplaces will get the opportunity to leave the country without paying fines and facing legal obstacles, he said.
This general amnesty period will be effective from March 17 to June 17 2024.
According to official statistics there are some 19,620 Sri Lankans staying illegally in Kuwait and around 5,000 have already registered with the Sri Lankan Mission in that country to return home.
“If individuals intending to return to Sri Lanka outside this amnesty period, they will face arrest and incur a fine of Rs. 650,000 followed by deportation and would be effectively prevented from re-entering that country.
“However, registering at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Kuwait during this general amnesty period exempts them from these fines and other legal actions.,” the official said.
During this general amnesty period, special offices of SriLankan and Al Jazeera Airlines, which are currently operating direct flights between Kuwait and Sri Lanka, are offering air tickets at concessional prices.
Several Gulf countries are known to offer periodical amnesty to foreigners including Sri Lankans from time to time in order to cut down on the size of undocumented workers.
Officials in Colombo could not give the exact number of undocumented Sri Lankans currently in West Asia but believe that there could be hundreds of thousands of such persons.
The bulk of them reach the Gulf region on easily obtained visit visas and later hunt for employment, which is not readily available, the officials added.
