- Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By: PTI
A PREGNANT Sri Lankan woman, who had been waiting in a queue for two days to obtain a passport to exit the crisis-hit island-nation for employment overseas, went into labour while waiting for her turn on Thursday (7) and delivered a baby girl.
Sri Lanka Army personnel stationed at the department of immigration and emigration in national capital Colombo noticed the 26-year-old woman in labour at the premises on Thursday morning and rushed her to the local Castle Hospital where she delivered the baby, officials said.
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The woman along with her husband from the central hills had been waiting for the last two days to obtain a passport to take up a job overseas.
Since the economic crisis kicked in during late January, long queues to obtain passports were seen regularly at the passport office.
Most of the people have opted to obtain passports in the ‘one day issue service’.
Meanwhile, another person, who was waiting at a fuel queue, died of a heart attack on Thursday morning, the 15th such death in a fuel queue since March.
The 60-year-old ice-cream seller on a three-wheeler had spent two continuous days in the queue for fuel at Payagala south of Colombo.
He developed chest pain while in the queue and was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.
Long queues for fuel are now seen leading to the Indian Oil Company’s LIOC (Lanka IOC) retail pumps in the country.
The state fuel entity CPC pumps dried up 10 days ago with no information on supply ships arriving in the country.
The LIOC, which runs over 200 pumping stations, now makes limited issues by using its supplies from their storage tanks in the eastern district of Trincomalee.
Sri Lankan energy minister Kanchana Wijesekara told the country’s Parliament on Wednesday (6) that until the arrival of a ship from the IOC, no fuel carrying vessels were available (till July 22).
Therefore, to meet the shortage, the government opted to pay a higher price and ordered a shipment to be able to reach by July 15.
Sri Lanka is going through the worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948, and needs to obtain at least $4 billion to tide over the acute shortage in foreign exchange reserves.
