Migrant workers stuck in virus-hit Iraq with no wages or way home

Migrant workers stuck in virus-hit Iraq with no wages or way home

BAGHDAD: For years, Rajib Sheikh wired money to his native Bangladesh from his day job in Iraq. But now, stuck without wages, he's asking his family back home for help.

The 26-year-old patisserie chef has gone three months without wages, and his Iraqi employer just stopped paying for his food stipend, too.

He is one of thousands of foreign migrant workers now stranded in Iraq with no income or way to get back home, watching the economy around them collapse.

"We're used to sending money back to our country, but now I had to ask my cousin to transfer me money,“ said Sheikh, who arrived in the southern oil-rich Basra province seven years ago.

"We hope we can go back to our jobs because it's not just us who are starving, but our families back home, too,“ he said.

The world economy has seen a dramatic slowdown due to the spread of COVID-19, but Iraq “” OPEC's second-largest crude producer “” was also hit hard by a collapse in oil prices.

That has sent the country spiralling into its worst fiscal crisis in years, with the World Bank estimating GDP will shrink by 10 percent this year.

Informal workers, it noted, were at a higher risk of