The Lebanese workers who were involved in a brawl over the weekend at their worksite in Kazakhstan returned to Beirut early Tuesday morning.
The workers arrived on a plane belonging to Middle East Airlines around dawn, airport sources told The Daily Star. A source added that 126 Lebanese nationals were on the plane, including both the workers and their family members.
The employees had worked for Consolidated Contractors, a construction company with an operation in western Kazakhstan. Multiple outlets reported that the brawl, which broke out Saturday morning, took place after a Lebanese employee shared a photo of himself and a female Kazakh employee that local staff deemed offensive.
However, Nurlan Nogayev, the governor of Kazakhstan’s Atyrau region, where the Consolidated Contractors employees were working, said that disparities between local staff and foreign contracted workers had sparked the incident.
At least 10 Lebanese nationals were injured in the altercation.
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Mohammad Kheir, the head of the Higher Relief Committee, whom Prime Minister Saad Hariri charged with following up on the incident, welcomed the employees' safe arrival and said he hoped something like it “would not be repeated.”
“The return of the Lebanese has been achieved thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Hariri and the Lebanese authorities,” he said, according to the state-run National News Agency.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
