“We boarded the trucks provided by the employing company and left the city of Darnah,” Dubar Chandra Rai, a resident of Buipa-5 in Khotang district, said. [break]
Rai said all 662 Nepalis, working for A-One Constructions, a South Korean company, left Darnah for the nearest Egyptian border town of Sallum, about 250 km away.
“The company will dispatch all its foreign employees, including the Bangladeshis and Indians, to Egypt,” Rai said. A senior South Korean staffer of the company assured Republica that the Nepali workers with the company will be safely handed over to the Nepali Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. “We are in constant touch with your embassy officials and will hand over the employees to them,” the staffer said.
First Secretary at the Nepali Embassy in Cairo Tirtha Aryal confirmed that the workers stranded in Darnah left for Sallum on the initiation of the employers. “We will go to Sallum and make visa arrangements for the Nepali workers to facilitate their entry into Egypt,” Aryal said. He revealed that the workers will then be brought to Cairo in the same trucks. “The Koreans themselves will travel to Cairo along with the workers. They have also promised to make arrangements for flying the workers to Nepal from Cairo,” Aryal added.
While the workers stranded in Darnah are set to return home safe, the fate of around 1,300 in capital Tripoli and other surrounding areas remains uncertain. The workers there have stayed put to their places and have not even dared to assemble together due to the precarious situation in the capital city, according to Aryal. They are under pressure to stay indoors as Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, according to media reports, has unleashed his death squads and foreign mercenaries to kill the protestors.
“We are in touch with the workers and they say they are safe inside the confines of their abode,” Aryal said. He said rescuing those in Tripoli and the vicinity is fraught with risk as it is unsafe to travel to Egypt through land owing to the long distance. “We have to either take them to Tunisia in the west by road or sea or fly them directly to Cairo from Tripoli,” he explained.
He said the workers have been advised to remain where they are for now and not try to leave the place on their own considering the dangerous situation. “We are exploring all available options and hope to rescue them safely soon,” he assured.
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