Amman - Hundreds of workers have been on strike in Jordan for the past 10 days - but not for a pay rise or improving work conditions, local media reported Sunday.

Instead the employees, mostly from Sri Lanka and India, believe that their factories are haunted by evil spirits and are demanding that the demons are expelled by exorcism, according to local trade unionists.

"A total of 367 workers belonging to the Sri Lankan and Indian nationalities have been on strike at the industrial zone in Sihab, 20 kilometres east of Amman, alleging that their plants were dwelt by devils," head of the Textile Industry Workers Union Fathallah Imrani told the daily newspaper al-Rai.

"This type of strike is unprecedented in the history of industry," he added.

Imrani said that about 200 of the workers have agreed to return to work after the business owners brought Muslim preachers who read Koranic verses at the plants, a traditional method for evicting devils.

But the rest of striking workers "insisted on changing the place where they work or be sent home," he added.

"South East Asian peoples usually believe in demons, but this feeling gathered momentum with these workers after one of them died of a brain illness and two women workers were deported to their countries because they suffered epilepsy," he said. dpa