Four Sri Lankans convicted of armed robbery were beheaded by the sword in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh on Monday, the interior ministry said.
Victor Korea, Ranjith De Silva, Santhosh Kumar and Sharmila Sangeeth Kumar were executed for robbing a number of businesses at gunpoint, the ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.
The beheadings bring to 15 the number of executions announced by the Saudi government so far this year. (www.lankanewspapers.com)
Many of Saudi Arabia's 6-million foreign workers labor under conditions that are sometimes compared to "modern-day slavery.''
How tough could it be? Very tough, Prianka quickly discovered. The house had 20 rooms and 13 bathrooms, and Prianka, the only maid, was expected to clean every one every day. There were nine children, and Prianka had to wash all their clothes and cook all their food. Seven days a week, she was up at 4:30 a.m. and never got to bed before midnight. All this for the equivalent of $26 a week.
After nine months, depressed and exhausted, Prianka had enough. As the family slept, she sneaked out of the villa, flagged down a taxi and told the driver to take her to the Embassy of the Republic of Sri Lanka.
Prianka was not the only Sri Lankan maid to seek refuge in the embassy's safe house this hot June morning. There was Pushpa Chandra, 30, who was sick of fighting off sexual advances from her sponsor's teenage son. And as tears slid down her smooth brown cheeks, a tiny 26-year-old woman whispered that she had been raped by her sponsor's adult son.
Now, she sobbed, she thought she was pregnant.
Last year, at least 2,800 Sri Lankan housemaids ran away from their Saudi sponsors, claiming they had been overworked, sexually abused or physically mistreated by jealous wives. They are among the countless foreign "guest workers" in Saudi Arabia who live and work under conditions that are sometimes compared to modern-day slavery.
"The world must know about this," says Mohamed Sakoor, a Sri Lankan driver and translator who works at Riyadh's international airport. He shares a roach-and-rat-infested shed, just 8 feet by 10 feet, with three other men hired by two rich Saudi brothers.
More in the St.Petersburg Times or read Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia by Human Rights Watch