MAY 11, 2014 DUBAI, UAE – A dead body of a Nepalese Women reported to be laying in a local hospital in Damascus, Syria without the information of cause of the death.
Sources has found that the women was working as a housemaid with local family and probably the cause could be from the accident, war time victim or any illness which is still unknown.
Amid government claims that there are no Nepalis in war-torn Syria, it has come to light that the body of a Nepali woman migrant has been lying in the mortuary of a local hospital for the past three months.
- Body of a Nepali woman lying in Syria for 3 Months
- Syria is a list of countries banned for employment for Nepalese.
- There is no Nepalese mission to help out in emergencies.
- Nepalese Women below 30 Years of age are restricted to work as housemaid in any Gulf and Middle eastern countries by Government.
Sunita Darji of Sankhuwasabha district, who had illegally reached the Syrian capital Damascus via India a year ago to work as a housemaid, had apparently died three months ago. There is a government ban on Nepalis from taking up employment in the Middle Eastern country.
The consular section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in Nepal was informed about the death very late, said a ministry official.
“Darji’s Syrian employer has agreed to provide the deceased’s family with $3,000 in compensation. However, we are yet to receive consent from her family,” the official said.
The ministry said that the employer had also proposed to provide an additional $ 2,000 if the Sunita’s kin give their consent to perform her final rites in Damascus. It has been learnt that Darji’s husband works in Dubai.
Owing to fear of possible claims over the compensation amount, efforts are under way to reach an agreement on whether to repatriate the body to Nepal. The Nepali embassy in Egypt, which looks after affairs of Syria, said that it had started a process to repatriate the body.
Meanwhile, the whereabouts of two migrant workers who had reportedly gone missing in Syria for the past two years are still unknown. Laxmi Gurung, 36, and Huma Magar, 39, had gone there on July 15, 2012, through a ‘setting’ at the Department of Immigration in Kathmandu. “Laxmi had called her family in December 2012 upon reaching Aleppo, a Syrian city which borders Turkey,” said Laxmi’s brother Keharjung Gurung. Both of them had gone to Syria as housemaid.
According to the Nepali embassy in Egypt, around 400 Nepalis are working in Syria as housemaids. Media reports said that around 200,000 people have been killed in the civil war in Syria that started in March, 2011, with more than 130,000 reported missing. According to a study of human rights organisations, around 2,000 of those killed in the war were foreigners.
An international immigrant organisation said that some people might have been taking shelter in neighbouring Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.
Government of Nepal forbidden Nepali women less than 30 years of age to go abroad and work as housemaid job and there are certain countries which has banned for both man and women to find their job, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria and other war torn countries.
Human traffickers are using Indian Airports, Bangladeshi Airports to transport these people to employ in these countries and government and its departments are silent.
Many of the people even fly-out from Kathmandu itself to the destination such as UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and later transported to those war torn countries by land or sea.
Lack job back home and poverty drive these young people from one of the poorest country to take the risk of life to survive and maintain their daily needs back home.
Source: Devendra Bhattarai Through – KOL
