1st group of Thai workers arrives in Bangkok

[Flashermac]

Bangkok Post

26 Feb 2010

 

 

The first group of 35 Thai workers fleeing unrest in Libya on Saturday morning arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport by Qatar airways flight No 612, reports said.

 

They were greeted by Yup Nana, an assistant to the labour minister, who had handed over 2,000 baht to each of them as transportation expense for further traveling to their respective hometowns, according to the reports.

 

Mr Yub advised the Thai workers to apply for a 15,000 baht financial assistance each from the provincial labour office.

 

Yard Chaiprom, one of the Thai workers, said he was happy to be able to safely return to Thailand. He urged the state to rapidly help other Thai workers being trapped in Libya.

 

[Khun_Kong]

They must have lost 2 on the way here. Thai TV on the scene reported 33. Each was given 2K THB at the airport for bus fare home. Possible that the TV team lost count after 20 when they ran out of fingers and toes.

 

Anybody know what kind of money they make there? This was no group of professional consultants or even domestic workers. More like a bunch of construction dudes.

 

Good start, though. Only 22,267 more to go! At this rate, they should all be safe as early as Xmess, 2013

[cavanami]

The Thais construction/labor workers make very little money.

When I was working / living in Taiwan, the customer had a load of Thai workers brought over and they all lived in a dorm, like 50 workers, with 1 TV for all of them.

They got paid like 5000 baht/month, as the "agent" really made the money as he charged 10,000 Baht for each worker and he did nothing. My customer paid room, board and transportation. The Thai workers signed up for a three stay, no home leave.

[Flashermac]

Food scarce, fears for labourers rise

 

 

 

Thai workers in Libya and their relatives have called on authorities to step up their efforts to bring them home, saying they have been badly affected by the violent political unrest.

 

Suchart Khamphan, a 53-year-old worker, told the Bangkok Post by telephone from Libya that a group of 49 Thai workers at a construction site in the city of Edri were living in fear of clashes while their food supplies were also running out fast.

 

[color:red]The construction workers, all of them from northeastern provinces such as Nakhon Ratchasima and Udon Thani, had been working on a housing estate project in the southern city, located about 1,300 kilometres from restive Tripoli, for more than eight months.[/color]

 

"Food shops are closed and we dare not to go outside the camp for fear of violence," he said.

 

They survived on food given to them by staff from the property developer twice a day.

 

Mr Suchart complained that they were living in poor conditions even before the protests flared up.

 

[color:red]The Libyan employer had refused to pay their wages for three months and had abandoned the project while the Thai staff from a job broker firm went back to Thailand two weeks ago, he said.[/color]

 

[color:red]"We are all alone here. We want to go home, but don't know how," Mr Suchart said, adding the group could contact neither Thai embassy officials nor the job placement company.[/color]

 

A staff member from Siam Work Co, the job placement firm responsible for the group of 49 workers in Edri, said the company had tried to contact the workers but failed.

 

"The company has tried its best to help them.

 

"We also asked the Labour Ministry to help the workers, but staff there told us that they have to help those in the more dangerous areas first," she said.

 

Anxiety is growing among relatives of Thais working in Libya as they have been unable to contact their loved ones following the wave of political turmoil in the country.

 

Relatives of the workers in tambon Lung Pradu of Nakhon Ratchasima's Huai Thalaeng district flocked to the community's learning centre yesterday to obtain updates on the situation. More than 130 Thai labourers working in Libya come from this tambon.

 

Lamai Khlangdee said she made her last phone call to her husband Thanik on Tuesday asking him whether he had had any food. Shortly after replying that he had not yet eaten, the phone signal was cut off.

 

Mr Thanik worked as a trailer driver in an area about 10 kilometres from downtown Tripoli. He earns 18,000 baht a month and remits 25,000 baht every three months.

 

"What I can do now is to pray for his safety. Now, I have to console our children that dad will soon return home," she said.

 

Wijak Polsaen, whose two sons work in Libya, said his eldest son was being evacuated to India, where he would board a flight to Thailand. However, there had not been any news from his younger son Pichai, who works as a mechanic at a factory.

 

Boonyoung Pitusombat said her husband Akkhaphol Chorattanamongkol, who works as a truck driver in Libya, recently telephoned her to tell her he that was staying in a workers' camp where they had only some bread and instant noodles to eat.

 

The first 45 Thai workers taking part in an evacuation operation are due to arrive back in Thailand by plane today, while Labour Ministry staff have arrived in Tunisia to help take care of about 1,000 Thai workers who have fled the fighting.

 

 

 

BP

 

 

[Khun_Kong]

Food scarce, fears for labourers rise

 

[color:red]..."We are all alone here. We want to go home, but don't know how," Mr Suchart said, adding the group could contact neither Thai embassy officials ...[/color]

 

 

Too busy taking care of themselves?

 

Thai government officials: fuckwads the world over!

[Flashermac]

The British embassy is on the ball ...

 

 

 

UK paying ‘bribes’ to free trapped Britons

 

 

<< The revelations over the demands for what one senior figure described as “bribes†underlines the problems faced by the government as it oversees a rescue effort that has been criticised as inadequate, poorly co-ordinated and slow.

 

Speaking in Downing Street after a specially convened meeting of the National Security Council and Cobra emergency planning committee, David Cameron stressed the government was doing “everything we can†to help the 200 British citizens still stranded.

 

The cabinet has come under intense fire over its efforts to help British nationals, which have been beset by technical problems and a perceived lack of leadership. >>

 

 

[TheCorinthian]

I miss these days......

[Flashermac]

Wow! You remember Teddy Roosevelt?

 

An absurb movie was made about this, depicting the US as invading Mororcco in strength and for some reason fighting the Kaiser's troops (who weren't there either). Effing Hollywood versions of history!

 

This is the fun part:

 

<< Roosevelt's resolve weakened still further when he was advised on 1 June that [color:red]Perdicaris was not a US citizen[/color], in fact he had forfeited his American passport for a Greek one many years earlier; but Roosevelt reasoned that since Raisuli thought Perdicaris was an American citizen, it made little difference. >> :content:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Perdicaris

 

 

[Flashermac]

 

 

First evacuees tell of Libyan horror

 

 

The first group of 50 Thai workers evacuated from riot-plagued Libya have returned home, expressing relief to have survived the "terrifying" experience.

 

The evacuees arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport yesterday on board a Qatar Airways flight out of neighbouring Tunisia.

 

Of the group, 33 are employees of SNC Lavalin Group, a large Canadian engineering firm, which evacuated workers to Tunisia by bus.

 

Another 16 Thai workers were sent back to Thailand by their German employer, and another worker was evacuated by a British employer.

 

On arrival at Suvarnabhumi airport, Yat Saiphrom, 47, from Nan province, said he had never experienced any situation as scary as the riots in Libya.

 

At his worker camp in the Benghazi airport, he heard gunfire and explosions day and night.

 

Benghazi is one of several major cities in Libya where violent unrest has broken out, including the capital, Tripoli.

 

Mr Yat said protesters ransacked the workers' camp, taking away all the vehicles, equipment and food, although they did not harm anybody.

 

The returning workers said the situation in Libya has grown increasingly violent and the food shortage has intensified.

 

[color:red]The SNC Lavalin employees said each of them had paid between 120,000 baht and 180,000 baht for job placement services and signed one-year contracts.[/color]

 

The workers said they had to borrow money to pay for the job broker firms and they have asked the firms to refund them some of their service fees.

 

Siriwat Kapphimai, 51, from Nakhon Ratchasima, said he has worked for this employer for two years and has repaid the loan he took out to pay for the job placement services.

 

He now hopes to receive some financial assistance while back in Thailand to help support his family.

 

Chup Tenglong, 45, from Ubon Ratchathani, said he would return to Libya after the situation calms down.

 

Yuph Nana, an assistant to Labour Minister Chalermchai Sri-on, said evacuated workers are entitled to 2,000 baht travel expenses to enable them to return to their hometowns. Those who are members of the fund for the assistance of Thai workers overseas will be entitled to 15,000 baht cash, said Mr Yuph.

 

The Labour Ministry will today start evacuating another 10,000 Thai workers from Libya.

 

On Monday, the team from the Foreign Ministry and the Labour Ministry that is evacuating Thai workers will hire a boat with a capacity to carry about 1,600 people from Italy.

 

The boat is expected to reach Tripoli in 30 hours to pick up Thai workers and take them to Rome.

 

Mr Chalermchai said he had asked the Transport Ministry to arrange about 10 charter flights to fly about 3,000 Thai workers, who have been evacuated out of Libya to neighbouring countries, back to Thailand.

 

For now, people cannot be evacuated by air from Libya because the country's airspace is closed.

 

The Foreign Ministry has also ordered the Thai embassy in Tripoli to set up a temporary shelter for Thai workers in Sabha, a city in southern Libya, while the Thai embassy in Cairo is to set up another temporary shelter in a town on the Egyptian-Libyan border.

 

About 6,000 Thais are still in Tripoli and nearby areas; 2,300 in Benghazi and nearby areas, and about 10,000 Thais are in other Libyan cities.

 

Labour Ministry spokesman Sutham Natheethong said yesterday he picked up about 223 Thai workers in Tripoli for overland evacuation to Tunisia before being flown to Bangkok. He would go to two Libyan border towns today to pick up another 242 Thai workers, who he understands are safe, he said.

 

Chirasak Sukhonthachat, director-general of the Employment Department, said around 400 Thai workers in the southern part of Libya have not been affected by Libyan unrest and will continue working there.

 

 

 

BP

 

 

 

[TheCorinthian]

We're taking people out by air in some cases.