When in 2013 the massive Erbil residential project Dashty Bahasht was closed down, 39 of the 45 Sudanese workers employed on the premises returned to Sudan, with only six deciding to stay in Erbil in the hopes that the project would resume its construction works.
The six workers who stayed were hired as guards on the project site, on the promise that once a new company would take over as investor and the project would resume they would receive their arrears.
That would never happen.
The workers were unpaid from 2014 to 2016, their total financial entitlements adding up to
$108,000.
Two of the six workers died at the unfinished workplace without ever receiving their salaries.
A decade on, the four workers left are pleading for help from the relevant KRG authorities to receive their accumulated salaries in order to return home.
"A short while ago, all of the documents that I had here expired making me unable to return. Now I want to return home at any cost," Fazil Akbar, 71, and father of four, told Rudaw.
The elderly Sudanese worker suffers from prostate cancer and serious pain in his vertebrae.
They used to receive $700 a month for the project.
Akbar says the project owner owes each of them a total amount of $25,500, and refuses to pay them.
"I am calling on philanthropists and the Kurdistan Regional Government to give me my money back so I can return to my family. My family consists of six members. My wife and I, and four children, a son and three daughters.
"I have been living in the Kurdistan Region since a long time ago. I hope I can return home," the Sudanese man added.
Idris Mohammed is another Sudanese worker facing the same struggles.
"After the company handed this place over to the investment [authorities of the Kurdistan Region in 2013], they asked us to stay on the project as guards and told us that any other company that takes over this project will pay our salaries," Mohammed said, adding no other company ever came to finish the project.
In order to make ends meet and afford to pay for their daily meals, the workers seek occasional gigs from philanthropists.
The Dashty Bahast Project is located in eastern Erbil city. It consists of 427 villas and 1,122 apartments, the construction of which started in 2010 at the cost of $200 million. It was supposed to be completed in 2013, but the investor, Adel Mutahida Group pulled out, leaving the project unfinished.
