Where dreams meet deaths

While interning with the Centre for Migration and International Relations (CMIR) in Kathmandu, I have started becoming familiar with the numbers and figures of Nepali migrant workers and the tragedies they have endured. But nothing struck me as much as what I witnessed yesterday, when my colleague Basanta and I went to the Tribhuvan International Airport to help receive the mortal remains of a migrant worker who died overseas.

At the airport, what I first noticed was groups of migrant workers, in blue caps, listening carefully to their agent’s explanations while holding passports, working permits and boarding passes. However, unlike other travellers, they did not look excited and eager; rather, most of them were nervous and confused. They then queued up at the departure gate, which was only for ‘passengers with working visa’. Having taken videos of them, I made my way to the arrival gate, where two coffins were moved out on four luggage carts.

The dead migrant worker’s body that I had been waiting for was 20-year-old Jitendra Nepali from Parbat, a hilly area in Nepal’s Western Development Region. He died in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after working there for seven months. The official cause of his death was ruled a suicide. A month after his death, his body was sent back to Nepal. Jitendra’s body was one among the three migrant workers’ bodies that arrived at the airport on the same day.

Nearly ten men were lifting the coffin to the truck. It was strangely calm and silent, perhaps everyone was trying to suppress their emotions. When the coffin was on the truck, two men put flower wreaths on it and one of them bent down and wept in silence. This was a heartbreaking scene.

I was told that Jitendra’s body would then be delivered to his home, and a funeral would take a total of 13 days. After that, his family members would come to our office in Kathmandu for further assistance.

Almost every day, the Tribhuvan International Airport receives the remains of three or four Nepali workers who have left to work in the Middle East and Malaysia. And in the year 2014/15, a total number of 1,004 migrant workers died while working abroad. Nepali migrants leave in good health and return in a casket - this is a sight all too common.