•  manama
• Monday, March 28, 2011
• Inter Press Service

As protests in Bahrain continue, increasingly migrant workers are being victimised in violent hate crimes.

'We expats are victims of hate crimes because we didn’t leave the country or become part of the general strike called by the opposition to keep Bahrain on hold,' Nastufi Sharma, an Indian who has been working in Bahrain since 1997, told IPS. 'To stop locals from going to work, roads were blocked… we were attacked.' Sharma isn’t considering leaving the country yet, but risks unemployment if the situation deteriorates further.

Eight migrant workers died and approximately 49 sustained various injuries since Mar. 17 when the government with the support of Cooperation Council of the Arab Gulf States (GCC) peninsula shield troops started cracking down on demonstrations blocking roads in Manama - the financial capital of Bahrain. The government has also declared a three-month state of emergency to be enforced by the Bahrain Defence Force.

Most expats are not yet considering leaving the country, hoping for the situation to revert to normal. They fear losing their jobs and not finding new ones back home. On Mar. 13 before the beginning of the attacks, the Civil Disobedience Support Committee sent a letter to foreign embassies in the country asking diplomatic missions to ask their nationals to leave immediately, while warning that the routes leading to the airport might not be safe. IPS obtained a copy of the letter.

Expatriates, mainly migrant workers from Asia, are in high demand for their skills and are valued for their low salaries - essential to prop up sustainable growth in Bahrain. Migrant workers represent almost half of the country’s population of 1.2 million. Migrant labour in the region is a huge source of remittance income in the workers’ home countries - and some embassies here seem to be taking the violent hate crimes against their nationals with a grain of salt.

The Prime Minister of Bahrain, Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, has met with Indian, Pilipino, Bangladeshi and acting Pakistani Ambassadors to assure them that the government is interested in the safety of all migrant workers in the country. There have been attacks on nationals of all these countries in the last few days. Al Khalifa said that expatriates are highly needed in Bahrain and their labour rights and safety would be protected.

There have been four deaths and around 40 injuries so far among Pakistanis, many of whom work as riot and security police. Ten Pakistanis are in critical condition. 'In my community that is estimated to have 65,000 Pakistanis, the death of one civilian and three policemen were reported, most of the attacks took place in Manama,' Aurangzeb, of the Pakistan mission to Bahrain told IPS.

After the attacks, most of the Pakistanis residing in Manama were evacuated to safer places in cities such as Isa Town, where they were housed in the Pakistan School and Pakistan Club. They will be shifted again to different accommodations soon, Aurangzeb said. The embassy hasn’t asked its residents to leave Bahrain.

Seven Bangladeshis have been hospitalised, three have died and four are under treatment. The number of victims is small according to the Bangladeshi Embassy when compared with the large number of Bangladeshis living in Bahrain - 100,000.

'Most of our victims were attacked in mid-March and I don’t blame anyone and I think they were assaulted for being caught in the middle of rioting and violence in the wrong time and wrong place,' Bangladeshi Ambassador Ali Akbar told IPS.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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