Though Nepal has no embassy in Libya, it is evacuating Nepalis from Libya with the help from embassy in Cairo.
The Cairo embassy has been helping Nepalis to evacuate, according to the embassy’s Chargé d’Affaires Kaushal Kishor Ray.
Around 400 Nepalis were supposed to be working in Libya, most of them in Tripoli. “Half of them have contacted the government requesting help in evacuating,” he said, adding that the evacuation is well managed and organized.
Some 12 to 14 Nepalis are also in Benghazi, and other 126 in Sirte working with the Korean company Dasoon, but have moved to Tripoli.
Some workers working for a company called Dasoon were ‘abandoned’ instead of helping them, it is said. But Ray claimed that ‘from what the embassy understood, they were not hired directly by Dasoon, but by a third party. The third party did not fulfill its obligations to them and Dasoon was not responsible.”
He also claimed that the Nepali workers in Libya are legal. “All the Nepalis working in Libya had work permits and visas,” he said, adding that the question of legality may have come up because they were defying government orders.”
The government had banned on traveling to Libya for employment because of the instability in the nation.
As of Sunday, some 60 Nepali migrant workers have been successfully evacuated and repatriated to Nepal with the help from Indian Embassy that provided them exit visas. “A transportation company in Tripoli was used to take them from Tripoli to the Tunisian border,” Ray added.
Six vehicles traveled in staggered intervals, with security, to Ras Jedir. From the Tunisian border they were sent to Tunis, from where they flew back to Kathmandu after three days. “We are now helping the next group to leave for Nepal within a week,” the Chargé d’Affaires said.
However, it is difficult to evacuate a small group in Benghazi. He said they had been warned that it was not safe for them to travel overland to the Salloum border crossing into Egypt.
But some of the Nepalis want to remain in Libya as the salaries they received were much higher than they would receive elsewhere.