Kalendra Sejuwal & Ajit Tiwari

Birendra Rokaya arrived in Surkhet on Tuesday afternoon, three days after leaving Gujarat in India. Rokaya, 22, had gone to India for work with his uncle Hari Khatri in February. With the Covid-19 crisis deepening, the duo decided to return.

Though Rokaya didn’t show symptoms of Covid-19, he had been ill for a long time with rheumatoid arthritis.

Throughout their return trip, the duo was provided food and fruits by volunteers in India. But when they entered Nepal, no one cared. “Without enough rest, it was hard for my nephew to make the long way home,” said Khatri. “My nephew’s health deteriorated by the time we reached Surkhet.” 

Once in Surkhet, it was hard to get a vehicle to take Rokaya to the hospital, Khatri said. Two ambulances turned down his plea. It took half an hour to find another vehicle. When they finally reached the Provincial Hospital, Rokaya was pronounced dead. He tested negative for Covid-19.

Khatri reckons his nephew would have survived if they were provided food and other services on the way by the Nepali government.

Nearly 10,000 people have arrived in Karnali Province from India since May 14, according to Ashok Bhandari, chief of the health desk in Babai. The province, however, has not provided food or any other facility for the returnees.

The provincial government has asked local units to quarantine returnees, but people have to wait for hours, most of them without food or water. “The first thing many people ask for when they check-in at the desk is food and water,” Bhandari said. “But the provincial government hasn’t made such provisions.”

While returnees are at high risk of catching the virus, the province’s testing mechanism has stopped since Monday, according to Bhandari. “All we do at the desk is check the temperatures of as many people as we can,” he said. “The government should have made provisions for food and a swift transfer to quarantine facilities.”

Addressing a meeting of the provincial assembly, Mahendra Bahadur Shahi, chief minister of the Karnali province, said that the heavy influx of people has overwhelmed his administration. “Our plan is to stop returnees wherever they are and place them in quarantine. But that hasn’t worked out as people are adamant about going home,” he said.

“We have requested the federal government for help. We understand many people are travelling hungry and thirsty and they are angry, but we are figuring out how to both control the spread of the virus and facilitate the returnees’ travel.”

Indra Bahadur BK of Dashrathpur in Surkhet, who recently returned from India recently, said he travelled all the way without water. “I had never seen a more incompetent government,” he said. “We feared we’d die of hunger, if not coronavirus.”

Meanwhile, at the Jatahi border point in Dhanusa, Province 2, another man lost his life. A 30-year-old man returning home to Sahidnagar in Dhanusa from Surat in Gujarat, India, through the Jatahi border point in Dhanusa died on Wednesday morning.

His relatives, who came to the border to receive him, said that the deceased had been sick for the past few days. “He was feeling unwell, but we couldn’t arrange for an ambulance on time to rush him to the hospital,” said Ram Hari, an uncle of the deceased. “A few that we contacted refused to give service.”

It had taken the deceased six days to reach Darbhanga, Bihar, from Surat.

Chief District Officer Koshhari Niraula said the deceased was with a group of around 250 Nepalis who had arrived at the border on a train from Darbhanga and had arrived in Jatahi at 3am on Wednesday.

All major Nepal-India border points have been sealed for more than two months since the lockdown was put in place. However, the movement of people across the border points continues with the federal government’s decision to allow Nepalis stuck at border points to enter Nepal.

Superintendent of Police Ramesh Basnet in Dhanusa, said, “At around 7am, we were informed that the deceased was critically ill. He died while an ambulance was being sent to take him to the hospital.”

A Nepal Army team brought the deceased's body to the Provincial Hospital in Janakpur. His swab sample has been collected to test for Covid-19.

Following the death, those who had come along with the deceased from Surat chanted slogans against the government calling out its indifference towards the plight of migrant workers. The crowd breached the security barricade and entered into Nepal. Security personnel later took all of them to quarantine facilities in various places in the district.

As many as 345 Nepalis entered Nepal from Dhanusha’s Jatahi border point on Tuesday. The returnees will be kept in quarantine facilities for two weeks before they are allowed to go home.

Published on: 28 May 2020 | The Kathmandu Post