Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Devastated families pay price in misery and debt
in Lakhauri, Nepal
SOME 100 miles from Kathmandu, Upendra Pasman’s family reveal the terrible toll of his time in the Gulf.
Upendra, 45, toiled 12 hours a day for just 800 Rials – about £164 – a month building roads in Qatar.
Three years ago, as he dug a ditch, he plunged
20ft into the dark and spent 12 hours trapped alone.
His brain injuries were so bad medics at a Doha hospital spent two years fighting to keep him alive. Twice Upendra underwent brain surgery but was left unable to walk, talk or feed himself.
Now he is confined to a
4x4ft room in his home in the village of Mahuwa. His family need 5,000 rupees (around
£50) a month for life-saving drugs and have racked up a debt of £4,000. His former employer is refusing to pay compensation, they say.
In tears, wife, Dhitri, 41, said: “If he was well he’d be taking care of us, now we are taking care of him. When I see my husband like this, I want to die.”
Gita Devi Mandal and her two kids are also being refused help after husband, Gita & Bikru pic. Bikru, 47, was crushed by Top: Upendra & family scaffolding in Qatar after falling from a fifth storey.
Bikru had spent eight years toiling in the suffocating heat, earning just £215 a month. Gita, 35, said: “I spoke to him two hours before he died. He told me to take care of myself and the kids.”
Now Gita, son Mukash, 20, and daughter Ritika, 16, are struggling to survive as they try to rebuild their lives in their remote village, Lakhauri.
It has left Mukash little choice but to follow in his father’s footsteps to Qatar to bring in some money.
“My family are scared,” he said. “It is dangerous – it took two months to get my father’s body back. I couldn’t see his face because it was so smashed.”