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Mysterious deaths: Nepalis working abroad come back home in caskets
WORLD Updated: Dec 21, 2016 13:37 IST
AP, Kathmandu
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Hundreds of young Nepali men excitedly wave final goodbyes to friends and family. On this day 1,500 will fly out of the Kathmandu airport bound for jobs mostly in Malaysia, Qatar or Saudi Arabia ? jobs that are urgently needed by the people of this desperately poor country.
But on this day, too, six young men will come back in wooden caskets, rolled like suitcases out of baggage claim on luggage carts.
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The number of Nepali workers going abroad has more than doubled since the country began promoting foreign labour in recent years -- from about 220,000 in 2008 to about 500,000 in 2015. Yet the number of deaths among those workers has risen much faster in the same period.
One out of every 2,500 workers died in 2008 while last year, one out of every 500 died, according to an Associated Press analysis of data released by Nepal?s ministry of labour and employment.
In total, over 5,000 workers from this small country have died working abroad since 2008? more than the number of US troops killed in the Iraq War.
The causes, in many cases, have been mysterious. Natural death, heart attack or cardiac arrest are listed for nearly half the deaths. Most families are notified that their loved ones simply went to bed and never woke up. That?s exactly what Saro was told.
But now medical researchers say these deaths fit a familiar pattern. Every decade or so, dozens, or even hundreds, of seemingly healthy Asian men working abroad in poor conditions start dying in their sleep. It happened in the US in the late 1970s, in Singapore about a decade later and more recently in China. The suspected killer even has a name: Sudden
Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome.
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WORLD Updated: Dec 21, 2016 13:37 IST
AP, Kathmandu
...
Hundreds of young Nepali men excitedly wave final goodbyes to friends and family. On this day 1,500 will fly out of the Kathmandu airport bound for jobs mostly in Malaysia, Qatar or Saudi Arabia ? jobs that are urgently needed by the people of this desperately poor country.
But on this day, too, six young men will come back in wooden caskets, rolled like suitcases out of baggage claim on luggage carts.
...
The number of Nepali workers going abroad has more than doubled since the country began promoting foreign labour in recent years -- from about 220,000 in 2008 to about 500,000 in 2015. Yet the number of deaths among those workers has risen much faster in the same period.
One out of every 2,500 workers died in 2008 while last year, one out of every 500 died, according to an Associated Press analysis of data released by Nepal?s ministry of labour and employment.
In total, over 5,000 workers from this small country have died working abroad since 2008? more than the number of US troops killed in the Iraq War.
The causes, in many cases, have been mysterious. Natural death, heart attack or cardiac arrest are listed for nearly half the deaths. Most families are notified that their loved ones simply went to bed and never woke up. That?s exactly what Saro was told.
But now medical researchers say these deaths fit a familiar pattern. Every decade or so, dozens, or even hundreds, of seemingly healthy Asian men working abroad in poor conditions start dying in their sleep. It happened in the US in the late 1970s, in Singapore about a decade later and more recently in China. The suspected killer even has a name: Sudden
Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome.
...
