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Egypt Stops Workers From Taking Up Jobs in Iraq
Arab News, Agence France Presse
CAIRO, 31 August 2003 — Egypt is not allowing workers to travel to Iraq because of the deteriorating security situation there, a Labor Ministry official said yesterday.
The official said local employment companies had asked the ministry to allow several hundred workers to make the trip to the war-torn country to work for US contractors engaged in reconstruction efforts. “We said ‘wait until security improves’,” he said.
He added that the ministry was also seeking details on the contractors and guarantees the workers would not be assigned to security tasks which might expose them to attacks by anti-US guerrillas, as well as insurance coverage.
“We want to make sure that adequate compensation will be paid to the workers if their contract is terminated, and that insurance will cover accident, death and rapatriation,” he said.
Local media said 6,000 workers had been recruited for jobs paying between $500 and $2,300 a month in Iraq, and 500 of those were for work as security guards.
The Labor Ministry official could not confirm the figures.
Before the Iraq war erupted in March, an estimated 65,000 Egyptians worked in Iraq.
The figure has not been updated, but it is believed that many fled the country to avoid the chaos that followed the US-led invasion and the fall of Baghdad.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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