Lebanese Involved in Kazakhstan Brawl Return Home

125 Lebanese nationals arrived at dawn on Tuesday at the Beirut airport coming from Kazakhstan after the weekend brawl between Kazakh and Arab workers in one of the country's largest oil fields.

Lebanon's ambassador to Kazakhstan, Jescar Khoury, told LBCI that Lebanese workers were in good health.

Saturday’s brawl between Kazakh workers and their Arab colleagues has left 30 people wounded and led to an outcry in Lebanon and Jordan.

Videos of the attacks on Arab engineers and workers were widely circulated on social media in Arab countries. The scenes showed them being kicked and punched by large numbers of local workers. Some of those attacked were covered in blood and badly bruised.

Interfax-Kazakhstan said the brawl erupted after a Lebanese contractor reportedly posted a photo on WhatsApp featuring a Kazakh female colleague that many in the former Soviet nation saw as insulting.

According to Lebanese and Jordanian officials, the wounded engineers and workers include Lebanese, Jordanians and Palestinians.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri had ordered officials to follow the case. Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab also called his counterpart in Kazakhstan to discuss protecting the Lebanese workers.

Lebanon's ambassador to Kazakhstan, Jescar Khoury, had assured that Lebanese citizens who worked at the oil field were placed under police protection in a hotel in a nearby city.