61 Nepalis return with horrendous tales

KATHMANDU, Feb 27: Nepali migrant workers who escaped from Libya via Egypt at last got to eat adequate Nepali fare--a plate of steamed rice, lentil soup and vegetable curry--after landing in Kathmandu on Saturday. It had been nine days since they last ate Nepali food, at their camp in the Libyan port city of Darnah.

"I felt a high of sorts as I ate Nepali food after so long," said Mahendra Prasad Kandel, 22, of Damak-19 in Jhapa district. Mahendra, along with other workers, had to live on khapsa, a kind of Libyan bread, while shifting from one camp to another and hiding from local thugs hell-bent on robbing migrant workers of their belongings, as the Libyan people revolted against Muammar Gadhafi.

Of the 562 Nepali workers who reached the city of Alexandria on Friday, 61 landed in Kathmandu by an Air Arabia flight via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The rest are expected to return on Sunday. The Nepali embassy in Cairo has obtained them transit visas for only 72 hours.

Nine days of torment

The situation of the Nepali workers, who were employed by the South Korean Won Construction Company at the Darnah housing project, was not so bad until 18 February when an angry mob burnt down the camps of their Korean supervisors. After their camps were burnt, the Koreans displaced the Nepalis from their camps. "On the night of February 18, the Koreans lived with us," said Mahendra. "We were forced to leave the following day."

On February 19, Bangladeshi migrant workers went to shelter in a mosque. Nepali workers also joined them. But most of them were asked to not sleep in the mosque as they were not Muslims. They stayed in an adjacent school for two days. "Hardly 40 people could sleep in one classroom at the school," Mahendra said. "But at least 90 of us had to spend the nights in one room. I could not sleep."

A local charity distributed bread and water to the migrant workers. "A single piece of bread was given to four of us," he said. "We had to share it." But there was a greater worry than the scarcity of food: their safety.

At the mosque school,thugs armed with sharp knives robbed some of them of their belongings. They snatched a mobile set from one Basudev Rai and looted money from others. "It was hard to tell who were political protestors or human rights activists and who were thugs," he said.

As the security situation steadily deteriorated in Libya, friends turned foes. Some Libyan laborers who worked alongside Nepali migrants came later to rob them. "A Libyan driver who used to supply us water tried to attack us," Mahendra said. "He was very friendly with us. But when we were left in the lurch, he came with a sharp knife."

After two sleepless nights, the Nepali workers shifted to a party palace. Things did not improve. The bread distributed by local social workers were already inadequate and water too became scarce. "We had to share a bottle of water among 10 of us," he said. "We could not go anywhere else."

On February 23, the South Korean company left the Nepali workers at the Egyptian border town of Sallum. As the Nepali embassy in Egypt, citing lack of resources, expressed its inability to take them on to Alexandria, where Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) President Som Lal Bataju had already arrived to arrange air tickets, they had to spend two more nights on the Egypt-Libya border.

The passports of 20 workers were burnt when the Korean camps were set ablaze. They were not allowed to sleep at the Egyptian immigration office at Sallum. "We had to sleep under the open sky," said Shiva Shah, of Dharan-16 in Sunsari. "It was cold. I felt sick while sleeping outside." Eventually, on February 25, all of them arrived in Alexandria.

"Only after reaching Alexandria did I feel that I could survive," Shiva said. "Earlier, I often gave up hope of returning home alive. At times, I thought of suicide."

Although the Libya unrest flared up hardly two weeks back, the plight of the Nepali workers began much earlier. On January 15 locals seized a huge building being constructed by the Nepali workers. They could not work there after that. "We cried out for rescue right then," Shiva said, adding, "However, no one listened. Only after the protests spread throughout Libya did something happen."

Returning empty-handed

Many of the workers who have returned or are about to return had gone to Libya with loans taken at high interest rates. Most workers who reached Libya a year ago have paid off their loans, but those who reached there recently are yet to do so. They have now returned with nothing but their debts.

"Many of us reached Libya only seven months ago," said Shiva. "Let alone earning anything, they could not even pay off their loans." Shiva himself had mortgaged his home to manage the Rs 135,000 he needed to reach Libya. "I worked only for 13 months," he said. "The employer used to cut 30 percent of my salary every month. How could I pay off my debt in such a short time?"

Kamal Budha Magar, 22, of Rolpa, who also returned to Nepal Saturday, says that life will now become tougher than it was in Libya. "I feared the thugs back in Libya. They chased us away" Kamal said. "Once in Kathmandu, I have started thinking about my life and my family. How will I sustain them now?"

The SOS Manpower Agency that sent the workers to Darnah has provided Rs 2,000 to each of the returnees. They will use it to return home from Kathmandu. After working in Libya amidst fears of being trapped between security forces and local protestors, many workers do not even have transport fare from Kathmandu to their homes, let alone money to buy gifts for their near and dear ones.

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