According to the Nepali embassy in Egypt, which oversees Libya as well, out of a total of 1,985 Nepali migrant workers throughout Libya, over 900 have already left the troubled land. [break]
"They have either reached Nepal or are on their way back," Tirtha Aryal, first secretary at the embassy, told Republica. "However, there are still around 1,000 workers in Libya. We are contacting manpower agencies and employer companies to evacuate them at the earliest."
According to Aryal, 988 workers are yet to escape from Libya, where thousands of locals have been demonstrating against Col Muammar Gaddafi´s regime for the last two weeks. Of them, 746 workers are in Ghat. They reached Libya to work at a construction project run by Ramco Trading and Contracting, a Qatar-based company.
Of them, 194 workers are likely to return Nepal via Sudan, along with migrant workers from other countries.
In Tripoli, the epicenter of the current Libya unrest, a total of 156 workers are still struggling to get through. Similarly, 29 workers are in Misurata, 36 in Sirt and 21 in Batta. According to embassy officials, a group of 20 Nepali workers, who left the Libyan city of Zuwarah Saturday, has made it to Tunisia.
Sluggish rescue irks workers
Hundreds of Nepali workers, who are still stuck in Libya, have vented ire against the government, manpower agencies and foreign employer companies for not acting promptly to rescue them.
"It has been more than 10 days since we asked for help," Uddhab Kathayat of Satdobato in Lalitpur, told Republica over the phone from Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya. "However, no one has rescued us. Every time we call our embassies, officials say they will evacuate us tomorrow. However, tomorrow never comes."
Uddhab, along with 67 other Nepalis, has been hiding in a camp ever since the streets of Benghazi turned into a battlefield. All of them are fearful, especially after an irate mob torched a camp in nearby Zuwarah, forcing 20 workers into entering Tunisia. "After that incident, we have not slept properly," he said. "At least 10 of us stay awake every night to prevent any untoward incident."
Worse, they are all alone. "No one we can complain to is here," he said, adding, "All senior executives of our company have already left Libya, carelessly abandoning us. They had provided rations only for a week. We are likely to run out within a few days. These days, we are eating only once a day."
N. B. Limbu of Tandi village in Morang district, who is in the Libyan capital Tripoli in a group of 48 Nepali workers, said: "We are living on boiled potatoes and rice gruel. No senior official of our company is here to look after us. We are too afraid to go outside for food as the security forces are opening fire every single minute."
Limbu was taken to Tripoli by Ramco Trading and Contracting Company of Qatar. The company had kept him and his friends in a camp outside its construction site. After senior officials of the company fled Libya, it turned out that they were being kept in some one else´s land. "Now, the owner of the land is threatening us to leave," he said. "No one responsible is there to listen to our plight. We urge our government to evacuate us immediately."
According to Aryal, 15 Nepali workers employed by an Indian construction company in Tripoli were abandoned on Monday even as the company airlifted its Indian workers. "We are trying to contact the Indian embassy to take up the issue," Aryal told Republica.
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