The chaos in Lebanon has left a large number of South Asians stranded or endangered. Today four Indian Navy ships entered Beirut harbor to begin evacuating nationals to Cyprus:

Over 1,000 Indians assembled at the jetty as Israeli operations against Hezbollah militia intensified in Lebanon.

The warships — INS Mumbai, INS Betwa, INS Brahmaputra and auxiliary tanker INS Shakti — anchored overnight off the Lebanese coast, moved into the port to pull out the anxious Indian nationals and shift them to camps in Larnaca in Cyprus, Navy sources said.

There are about 12,000 Indians in Lebanon, according to press reports. And while India has the capability to mount its own evacuation, other countries with large numbers of nationals in Lebanon are in a more difficult position. The International Organization of Migration (IOM) has a team in Lebanon on behalf of the governments of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Moldova and Ghana. There are at least 10,000 Bangladeshis in Lebanon, and up to 40,000 Filipinos.

But the case that stands out is Sri Lanka, with an estimated 93,000 nationals in Lebanon of whom 86,000 are women employed as domestic labor.

According to a recent article in Middle East Report, Sri Lankan domestic workers have become ubiquitous in Lebanon. You won’t be surprised to learn that the employment process is shady and the workers often mistreated:

Each year, over 10,000 female Sri Lankans arrive in Lebanon with the intention of working hard to make better lives for themselves and their families. Most of them go to work cleaning, cooking and caring for children—jobs that Lebanese are generally not willing to take though the services are in high demand. Along with Filipinas, Bangladeshis and other Asian and African women, Sri Lankans have become an integral part of the Lebanese home and the Lebanese economy in the post-war era. In most cases, these women earn more than they could in their home country, but it is estimated by the Migrant Services Center, one of the largest NGOs in Sri Lanka serving domestic migrants, that 40 percent of them return to Sri Lanka no better off than they were when they left. Some are struggling to repay large loans taken out for migration expenses and the families of others mismanaged their remittances, but many simply had their wages withheld. It is estimated that 20 percent of the 80,000 Sri Lankan migrant workers living in Lebanon experience some form of maltreatment, ranging from non-payment of wages to verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

… According to David Soysa of the Migrant Services Center, hiring agencies direct the least skilled and least educated women to Lebanon, because that destination is perceived to have the highest rates of worker abuse. SFBLE statistics do show slightly higher rates of reported maltreatment in Lebanon than elsewhere.

So far, the Sri Lankan government has been trying to move its nationals from the most endangered areas to other parts of Lebanon:

The embassy was hiring buses to transport those who needed help. The embassy was trying to evacuate about 1500 endangered Sri Lankans from an area called Hyda which was directly on the onslaught of the bombing. There were many problems the embassy was facing to move these people out. Not many drivers were willing to take their vehicles on hire to this area. The other problem was roads and bridges have been destroyed by the Israeli bombing in the area.

A Sinhalese nun called Sister Leela who has been caring for Sri Lankan evacuees interviewed by the BBC’s Sandeshaya said yesterday the Sri Lankan Embassy informed her that another bus load of 100 will be arriving at her center for safety.

In the meantime, it appears that the casualties have begun:

Sri Lankan woman housemaid in Lebanon is feared dead due to the Israeli aerial bombing in Lebanon, Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said.

Ministry spokeswoman Himali Arunathilake said that “We have received information that a female worker is among the dead in northern Lebanon and we are now trying to verify those reports.”

Given the number of people involved, the conditions on the ground, the fact that many workers don’t have papers, and the expected resistance of employers to allow their domestics to leave, it’s likely that more than a few young Sri Lankan women will become “collateral damage” of the Israel-Hezbollah war.