‘It is very hard to find work’

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.

"My husband lost his job because there is no cooking gas and food costs have skyrocketed. It is very hard to find work and the salaries are very low," said Lenora, who said she earns about 2,500 Sri Lanka rupees ($6.80) a day. "With two children that is impossible."

So last week, carrying a change of clothes and an umbrella to fend off a blistering sun, the petite woman boarded a train from the town of Nuwara Eliya, in Sri Lanka's central hills, and travelled 170 km to the commercial capital, Colombo, to hand in her papers for her first passport.

In the queue, Lenora was joined by labourers, shop owners, farmers, public servants and housewives, some of whom camped out overnight, all looking to escape Sri Lanka's worst financial crisis in seven decades.

In the first five months of 2022, Sri Lanka has issued 288,645 passports compared with 91,331 in the same period last year, according to government data.