Indian worker returning from Iraq succumbs to illness

An Indian youth, Shemshar Singh, died in a Sharjah hospital while returning home from war-torn Iraq.

Shemshar, 24, who belonged to Gurdaspur District of Punjab, was returning from Iraq with 11 other colleagues on June 22, when he fell seriously ill and was admitted to a Sharjah hospital in Dubai city.

Succha Singh, Shemshar's father, said that his son was working in Iraq as a labourer as he had volunteered to provide financial assistance to the family.

"Our request is that our child's dead body should be brought back to our place. We do not have any other demands. We do not have anything else to do with the government. All their promises are false. None of the children have been helped. My son has died and no government official has come to meet us," said Succha.

The news came as a shock to the family members of Shemshar, who went to Iraq four months ago, to earn money as they were from a poor background.

"Our only demand to the government is that I just want to see my child's face," said Shemshar's aunt, Gurmeet Kaur.

About 10,000 Indians work in Iraq, mostly in areas unaffected by the fighting, but scores of them have returned to India since ISIL began its offensive.

Forty six Indian nurses, who were abducted by suspected Islamist militants in Iraq, were brought back home in Kerala.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other Sunni Muslim militant groups have seized towns and cities across Syria and Iraq in a lightning advance.