‘I must stay strong’: hardship for workers fleeing Sri Lanka’s broken economy

theguardian.com:

Suvendra Mary has not changed her clothes, nor has she had a decent meal in five days.

Last week, she and six other women boarded a bus from their home town, Badulla, about 350km from Colombo, and arrived at the department of immigration and emigration in hope of applying for their passports. Since then, the women have been sitting in a queue of at least a thousand others dreaming of leaving Sri Lanka.

Mary is hoping to find work as a housemaid in Saudi Arabia. Her only goal is to send money home to her family who are feeling the brunt of the worst economic meltdown to hit the country since it gained independence from the British in 1948.

The seriousness of the situation was laid bare by prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday when he told parliament that after months of shortages “our economy has completely collapsed”.

“I thought we will be able to get our passports in a day but now we are staying in this queue for several days,” said Mary, 41. “When it rains, we sit under umbrellas. When it is too sunny, we sit under umbrellas. We don’t leave our spot. If we leave someone else will take it.”

These days, people staying in queues for days to purchase fuel and cooking gas is a common sight. Headline inflation year-on-year shot up to 45.3% by May this year. The Sri Lankan government is struggling to find sufficient foreign currency to import essential goods, while protests continue across the island demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign.

A team from the International Monetary Fund is on the island to negotiate a bailout. But for people like Mary, leaving seems to be the only option to beat poverty.

According to government statistics more than 329,000 people have applied for passports from January to 15 June this