More than 43,000 overseas migrant workers have returned to Nepal during the Coronavirus pandemic out of 125,000 who registered to be ‘rescued,’ according to Nepal’s Labour Ministry. The pace of the repatriation exercise has been painfully slow, and many workers who have lost their jobs or cannot bear to be so far away, are desperately trying to return home.
Many stranded workers have spent any savings that they had, and are barely surviving with support from friends, co-workers or other Nepalis, including from the Non-resident Nepali Association (NRNA). Others still do not know how they will manage to buy a ticket if they ever get on a flight list. Here are some of their stories as part of the Nepal Photo Project.
KUWAIT
Etubar Kisku went to Kuwait in 2017, encouraged by a friend from his village who was already working there. “I actually got lured into it — he painted such a rosy picture. I got excited about the idea of working at a hotel in a foreign land with a good salary. He told me that I would get 100 dinars (Rs39,000) per month. I have two daughters and a wife to look after, so I agreed.”
“When I came here things were different, I wanted to return home,” says Kisku, 36, from Bhagudubba of Jhapa district. His job was not at a hotel as promised, but in a restaurant. He was paid about Rs36,000 and was sending home Rs20,000 from it every month. But the restaurant closed, and Kisku has been without work for four months. “Thankfully the company has provided accommodation and we don’t have to pay rent,” he says.
When the pandemic started, Kisku and some of his Nepali flatmates stocked their pantry with essential items like rice, oil, salt and potatoes. He has been able to find some construction work through Indian and Bangladeshi migrant worker friends, but it is back-breaking. “The work is not regular, and for 12 hours I only make about Rs2,000,” Kisku says. “Still, it is better than having no work — it at least helps me to survive.”
He has been waiting to return home for many months, but the flight costs more than he can afford. “The ticket home is Rs85,000 one way, I don’t have that kind of money,” he says adding, “At this rate, I wonder if I will be able to go home.”
Kisku’s company still has his passport despite efforts to get it back. “I keep calling them, but they always say one thing or the other and hang up.”
Kisku has built a community of Nepalis who he calls his ‘solti’ and ‘soltini’. Every morning after waking up he calls his soltini who works at the airport to check ticket prices. “I am not educated, I do not know the ways of the world, so I ask them, and I trust that they will help me in my time of need,” he says.
- Bunu Dhungana
SAUDI ARABIA
Raju Murmu — When we talked to Raju Murmu in late August, he was crammed into a room in Saudi Arabia’s capital Jeddah with 14 other Nepalis. They had pooled their money and bought an internet package to ensure that they could tell their story to the world, but the data pack was running out, and they could not afford to buy another one.
Of the workers Murmu, 31, from Jhapa was the only one who knew how to use the internet. “Where are the concerned authorities? We want them to see the condition we are living in now, we want them to rescue us,” said Murmu then, via video call.
Murmu had been stuck in Jeddah since December. After he lost his job as a cleaner at the airport, he tried to find another one in the city, but he was not allowed to work. When the Nepal Government announced that international commercial flights would resume in August, he asked his family in Nepal to send him Rs50,000 and paid Rs84,000 for a ticket home. He also paid Rs7000 for a PCR test.
Finally on 6 September, Murmu landed in Kathmandu and quarantined in a hotel in Bag Bazar, where last Thursday he did a PCR test. He tested negative and has been with his family in Jorpati since then.
Murmu made the journey home with a heavy heart: “How can I be happy when the people I spent four years with are stuck, and have no hope of coming back? I can only be at peace when I know all my friends in Jeddah are home safe.”
- Nitu Ghale
Narendra Sarwariya, Mahendra Hemran, Narendra Prasad Chaudhary, Ramnepal Thakur
Among those who shared a room with Raju Murmu are Narendra Sarwariya, 30, and Mahendra Hemran, 26, from Mahottari and Morang districts. They worked as cleaners in Jeddah but have been unemployed for the last six months.
The men have been sharing the single room with up to 14 other Nepalis. They first pooled their money and bought an internet data pack to ensure that they could share their plight. The internet ran out, and now they are selling gifts they had bought for their families — blankets, chocolates, watches, etc — to pay for the internet.
While two among them have managed to make it back to Nepal, the others whose families do not have money to send for tickets have remained behind. They are running out of food and water and have been ordered to vacate their single room. Weeks after we originally talked to Hemran, last week he left this voice message on our mobile phone: “Please help me get back home. I want to come home, I love my country. If I could come home everything would be good.”
Also sharing the room are Narendra Prasad Chaudhary, 48, from Nawalparasi and Ramnepal Thakur, 53, from Dhanusha. They cannot go home because the company they worked for refuses to return their passport.
Chaudhary says he was asked to pay Rs187,000 and Thakur Rs125,000 to get their passports back. “How can we pay such a huge amount?” asks Chaudhary. “We have been unemployed for the past six months.”
He continues: “Having worked for 12 years, I should have received a bonus. Instead, I have to give them money. And have to pay an additional amount to go home. Why do we have to pay to go home in times like these?”
- Nitu Ghale
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Raj
Raj (who asked us to hide his real name) from Bhaktapur resigned from his job in Abu Dhabi in February because he was planning to go to Croatia. However, his company did not process his resignation on time, so he got stranded in Abu Dhabi without work.
