The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday said that it has facilitated the return of 18 Indian nationals stranded in Libya’s Benghazi city.

At least 16 of them were workers who had been stuck at a plant owned by the Libyan Cement Company for nearly six months without being paid, The Hindu reported.

It was not immediately clear whether the other two Indians were also working at the same plant.

“They [the 18 workers] had gone to work in Libya and had been stranded for several weeks,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on social media. “The Embassy [in Libya] worked closely with the local authorities & assisted the Indian workers with required authorization & travel documents.”

Jaiswal added that all 18 Indians would be arriving in New Delhi on Wednesday.

According to The Hindu, the sixteen workers in the Libyan Cement Company plant claimed that they had been held in “prison-like” conditions for protesting long work hours, unscheduled shifts and erratic pay.

On December 20, the ministry said that efforts were being made to address the immediate concerns, including about safety, food and water, raised by the 16 workers. This came a day after a report in The Hindu about their condition.

The ministry had said it was making efforts to repatriate the workers. However, several formalities, including exit cards for those without legal work authorisation, required by the Libyan government had to be completed, The Hindu quoted the ministry as saying.

The workers’ colleagues and social workers in the region assisted them and also ensured that they were able to contact the outside world after their phones were taken away following their protest, The Hindu reported.

Out of the 16 workers, 13 are from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district, The Hindu reported. The other three are from Bihar.

According to the newspaper, the workers were recruited to Libya under the pretext of high-paying jobs by fake recruitment agents operating in the region.