Forty Sri Lankan migrant workers who ran into difficulties while employed in Saudi Arabia have been paid nearly Rs 56.9 million in recovered wages and allowances, the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment said on Friday.
The sum — 639,381 Saudi riyals — was recovered through legal action and other interventions by the Employment and Labour Welfare Division of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, the Daily Mirror reported.
The payments were handed over on Friday 13 November at the SLBFE under the patronage of its General Manager, Devapriya Gunasinghe.
The period covered
The recoveries were made between January 2026 and 11 November 2026, following efforts to obtain unpaid salaries and allowances owed to the affected workers.
Across 40 workers, the total averages roughly Rs 1.4 million each, though the filing gives no breakdown and individual amounts are likely to vary widely.
Unlawful detention cases
The embassy also intervened in cases involving Sri Lankan workers who had been unlawfully detained in Saudi Arabia, the Bureau said, securing their release and arranging for their return to Sri Lanka.
No figure is given for how many workers that involved, and the filing does not say whether those cases overlap with the 40 who received payments.
Sourcing note
This item carries no reporter byline and is attributed in the Daily Mirror’s own metadata to “Administrator” — the marker this desk has repeatedly found on submitted material rather than desk reporting. The figures and framing are the Bureau’s own. A sweep of the Hiru, NewsFirst and EconomyNext rails at the time of writing found no independent filing on the handover.
Not reported
The filing does not say what the 40 workers’ difficulties were, what categories of employment they were in, or how many were women. It gives no figure for how many Sri Lankans in Saudi Arabia have outstanding wage claims, no comparison with previous years’ recoveries, and no exchange rate for the riyal conversion. It does not say whether any employer faced sanction.
