Battered by economic crisis, Sri Lankans seek passport to a better life

People wait to collect their passports at the Sri Lanka's Immigration and Emigration Department, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. - Reuters

COLOMBO: R.M.R Lenora stood in a snaking queue outside Sri Lanka's Immigration and Emigration Department headquarters for two days last week, hoping to get a passport and, with it, a chance to leave a country wilting under an economic crisis.

A garment worker, 33-year-old Lenora decided to apply for a job as a maid in Kuwait after her husband was laid off from a small restaurant where he worked as a cook.