Around ten severely injured women, who are the victims of last week's fire in their company accommodation in Madinathul Ummal district in Dammam, are currently being sheltered in temporary accommodation without any medical treatment. Among these women, the condition of some is reported to be critical. The fire occurred last Saturday when the accommodation provided by a manpower company for around 40 female laborers went up in flames in the middle of the night. Most of the ladies jumped out of the second floor of the building, where the fire started. Two workers, Rayhanath, 40, from Sri Lanka and Helena, 50, from Bangladesh died due to burn injuries and smoke inhalation. All of the women are contract cleaning laborers working at Dhahran Central Hospital and Dhahran Ayoon Hospital. Those who jumped to save their lives sustained serious injuries especially on their feet. Mushtha Reena, a Bangladeshi national who survived the incident, is in a critical condition with both her legs fractured and injury to her uterus as a result of the high jump. She was taken to the hospital by rescue workers but was discharged after three hours allegedly upon the request of the recruitment company manager. Reena, who needs medical care including surgery, is being kept at the furnished apartment with minimal basic facilities, without any medical treatment. As a result of infection, she now has a high temperature and the swelling in her feet has become serious. She is provided with paracetamol by social workers, but is unable to even move from her bed and is crying constantly due to severe pain. Unable to speak, she lies in her bed wanting only to return to Bangladesh. Reena's room mate, Pyari, yet another Bangladeshi national, who takes care of Reena and the other injured women during her time after work, told Saudi Gazette, that Reena and the other survivors of the fire were forcefully discharged from the hospital as their insurance policy would not cover the large hospital bill. “Our manager told us that it would cost them around SR300 per person per day if they were admitted to the hospital and that the company is not willing to pay this amount. All of us work for SR400 and SR450 per month and all of our savings were burnt in the accident. We have no way of providing medical treatment to our severely injured co-workers and our company does not allow us to be absent from work to help these poor women, who cannot even move without assistance,” Pyari said. Mushtha Reena's entire savings after four years of hard labor, without even going on vacation, added up to SR2,400 and was turned into ashes during the blaze. Kanees Fathima, who is also from Bangladesh, has fractures in one leg and also lost her life savings of SR3,000 and all the items which she had purchased to take home when she goes for vacation. She is now mentally depressed due to her heavy loss and the severe pain she has in her leg. Rasheeda Abdul Khader, from India, is also in a critical state with a broken neck, dislocated shoulder and fractured kneecap and she says she did not receive any medical treatment. She was provided with a neck-supporting collar by Kerala Relief Wing (KRW) social workers, but she cannot turn her head or sit up straight. She also has trouble breathing as she inhaled a lot of smoke while trying to rescue her co-workers during the fire. Faseela, the niece of Rayhanath who died as a result of the fire, is also in very bad condition as she sustained burn injuries and has a fractured hand. Due to smoke inhalation, she now has a severe cough, but she too is without any medicine. Khadeeja Akthar, Rooja, Masooda Akthar, and Fathima Begum, all from Bangladesh, have comparatively minor injuries but do not even have pain killers or paracetamol to reduce the pain they have. All they want is to go back to Bangladesh as they lost everything they have earned during their years of labor in the Kingdom. Most of the injured women Saudi Gazette saw in the temporary accommodation need medical treatment. In the tiny rooms of the furnished apartment, where a maximum of four people can be housed, eight to ten women are living, most of them sleeping on the floor. These poor laborers say that after being abandoned in the temporary accommodation, they were not given anything to eat for three days and as they lost all their belongings in the fire, they do not even have clothes to change into. KRW and other social workers are trying to provide these unfortunate women with as many clothes and other basic necessities as they can. According to these women, they have not received any help from their employers or their embassies. Rayhana Abdul Salam, a social worker, who has been looking into the case of these very unfortunate ladies, told Saudi Gazette that if action is not taken immediately, the condition of the injured would worsen. “This is one of the worst humanitarian crises I have seen and if something is not done immediately, the situation will worsen for these critically injured women. These women are sleeping on the bare floor and their company has not even bothered to ask about their condition inside the apartment. These ladies tell me that in the building which caught fire, their air conditioners had not been working for months and they used to sleep on the terrace of the building. This itself is clear evidence of the heedlessness of their recruitment company and proof that they have been suffering a lot. Apparently, the torture did not end there. Now they are in dire need of medical treatment and other basic facilities but their employers are nowhere to be seen. Except, of course, for the fact that the bus comes on time everyday to take the uninjured females to work,” she said. “They do not get breakfast and they have no facility to cook their food in the furnished apartment and also they do not have any money to buy food. It is really pathetic and I hope that the embassies of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will intervene in this matter and end the suffering and hardship of these poor women,” she added.
