July 17, Colombo: The Additional General Manager of Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau L.K. Ruhunage says that the government has not granted permission to any Sri Lankan to work in Iraq although around 5,000 Sri Lankans are employed there.

They have migrated to Iraq for employment submitting wrong information that they would work in other Arab countries.

A Sri Lankan engineer was burnt to death last Thursday in a fire at a hotel in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya that killed 29 people and injured another 22.

The deceased is a 29-year-old telecommunication engineer graduated from Moratuwa University working in a radio channel in Iraq. He was identified as S.M. Galhena, a resident of Padukka.

However, the government is having difficulties to look into the problems of these Sri Lankan employees in Iraq since the nation has no functioning embassy in Iraq.