An Indian Air Force flight has brought back the bodies of 45 workers killed in a fire in Kuwait.
The fire broke out Wednesday at a residential building in Mangaf city, where 176 Indian workers live.
Kuwaiti authorities said 50 people died in the fire, including 45 from India and 3 from the Philippines. The two bodies have not yet been identified.
On Thursday, an Indian minister arrived in Kuwait to coordinate efforts to identify the victims and bring them back to the country.
Two-thirds of Kuwait’s population are foreign workers and the country relies heavily on migrant workers, especially in the construction and domestic sectors.
Human rights groups regularly raise concerns about their living conditions.
Dozens of workers, most of them Indians, were also injured in the fire.
Indian Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh said DNA tests were conducted to identify the victims.
Among the workers confirmed dead, 23 were from Kerala state, 7 were from Tamil Nadu, 3 were from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, 2 were from Odisha and 1 each was from Bihar, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana.
Mr. Singh said the Indian government had arranged a special Air Force flight to bring the bodies back to the country.
The flight landed in the Kerala city of Kochi on Friday morning, where the bodies of the workers from southern Indian states will be handed over to authorities, then continued to Delhi.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other state lawmakers reached the airport to receive the bodies and pay tribute to them.
The state government arranged ambulances to transport the bodies of the workers home for the last rites.
Mr. Vijayan said: “This is a great tragedy for our country. Migrant workers in Kerala are the lifeblood of our state. Fires in Kuwait are one of the biggest tragedies to affect the community.” our coin”.
The state and federal governments have announced compensation for the families of those who died in the fire.
In Kuwait, authorities said they are conducting inspections of safety and health conditions in some buildings where foreign workers work in the country.
According to Arabic TimesAuthorities’ investigation showed that the fire started due to an electrical short circuit in the security guard’s room on the ground floor of the six-story building.
A senior official of the Kuwait fire department on Wednesday had speak That flammable material was used as partitions between rooms and apartments in the building.
The Times reported that the Kuwait Public Prosecution Department arrested a citizen and several foreigners on charges of manslaughter and negligence for failing to implement fire safety measures.
After the fire, Sheikh Fahad Yusuf al-Sabah, the country’s deputy prime minister, accused property owners of greed and said violations of building standards had led to the tragedy.
