A fter outrage on social media about the government not following its own guidelines about repatriating Nepali migrants from abroad, stranded and desperate workers are finally beginning to come home this week.
The first repatriation flights on 5 June brought back 168 Nepali security guards working for two companies in UAE from Sharjah. Earlier the same day, 26 Nepalis stuck in Burma were flown home. On Tuesday night, 11 Nepalis were flown back on a Nepal Airlines direct flight from Canberra which had dropped Australians and New Zealanders stuck in Nepal.
None of them were undocumented workers given amnesty, pregnant or disabled, or those relying on the embassy for food and room. However, the first of 3,000 undocumented Nepali workers who have been in a transit camp for 42 days are being flown back from Kuwait on Thursday, and the first lot will include women workers.
“When the government first announced that repatriations would begin a couple of weeks back, we were very jubilant,” says Laxmi, a Nepali worker on the phone from Kuwait. “Every evening for a few days, we danced to some happy Nepali music.”
But soon, the dancing stopped and the exhilaration turned to frustration as the days dragged on and there was no word about the flights. Nepalis in an all-male quarantine started raising slogans against the embassy and the Nepal government, taking to social media to protest.
“We at least get decent food and have air conditioning in the school where we have our camp, there are some men in camps in the desert who have it worse,” Laxmi adds.
There is even more anger in UAE, which has 17,375 stranded Nepalis who have registered to return, but the ones who came back last week were not from the embassy’s priority list. Some of them marched to the Nepal Embassy in Abu Dhabi to protest, and had to be dispersed by police.
“The embassy does not pick up our phone, how else are we supposed to reach them?” asks one Nepali undocumented worker who has been providing updates to Nepali Times over the past weeks. “They called the police, and sent us back without any information.”
The 5 June flight permission was obtained on the assumption that the UAE government would sponsor the airfare of the most vulnerable Nepalis selected by the Embassy in Abu Dhabi, including pregnant women. Instead, the plan veered and the lapses in communication and coordination led to two companies using that permission to charter the flight to take their employees back to Nepal.
For workers in Kuwait or the UAE, the hardest part has been the uncertainty and the waiting game with the lack of clear communication and the mixed messages driven by speculation on social media.
In Kuwait, Laxmi says the wait is getting unbearable. “They assure us that flights will resume, but it never happens. I have packed and unpacked my bag three times. Why doesn’t the government just publish a schedule of flights and stop this suspense?”
Miya is also an undocumented worker in the UAE, who got a letter from the embassy last month with written assurance that he will be put on the first flight home. When the 5 June flight took off, he was not on it. But he was shocked to find that his local government in Gorkha had him on the passenger manifest of the first flight who needed to be quarantined. He asks, “Does no one owe me an explanation?’
Besides the lack of communication and coordination, there are also practical shortcomings in the repatriation strategy. The Nepal government has said that the air fare of returnees should be by the worker, but many have used up all their savings and the charter flights are more expensive.
“How can a jobless worker reliant on charity for food for months be expected to afford tickets?” asks a UAE-based Nepali community leader.
The other government requirement is that returnees should have a certificate proving negative COVID-10 status, but workers in the Gulf countries including the UAE say that is challenging. None of the passengers on the first flight from Sharjah were tested.
For the last 10 weeks, the government did not allow its nationals home because it said it needed to prepare for their return. But the first flights last week showed that even with the Nepal Army in charge, the preparations were inadequate with ad hoc decisions on who got to fly back first, no evidence of ramped up PCR tests on arrival, and under-equipped quarantine centres in the districts that could be hotbeds for the disease.
About 25,000 Nepalis are expected to fly back in the next few weeks, and experts say embassies need to communicate more frequently and clearly with workers about their flight status, the government in Kathmandu needs to coordinate better between ministries, and provide help to workers who cannot afford to buy tickets and do not have employer or host country support.
Nepal’s embassies abroad are under severe resource constraints, and have to carry out what is directed by the decision makers in Kathmandu. But there is a sore need for transparency in the selection process with frequent and honest updates.
The first women-only repatriation flight from Kuwait paid for by the Kuwaiti government is scheduled to arrive on 10 June. Rita, a Nepali worker who has spent the past one-and-half months at the transit camp set up by the Kuwait government is certain she will be on the flight because she is pregnant.
“It is bittersweet for me. I can’t wait to go home but my husband is also in Kuwait although not part of the amnesty program as he is documented. He is stuck in his room without work and would have gone home with me had it been possible,” Rita said on the phone. “The baby is still four months away, so I am hopeful that he will be able to join me in Nepal to welcome our daughter.”
Some names have been changed.
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