Among the Nepali overseas workers who went to gulf countries to build their future, more than five hundred died in the year 2007 alone, news report said.

Most of the deaths occurred in traffic accidents, due to work place hazards, heart attacks or by committing suicide, rather than natural causes, the report said. The deaths mostly occurred in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Riyadh based Nepali Embassy has said that last year 301 Nepalis died in Saudi Arabia which has more than 200,000 Nepalis working in various sectors in mostly semi-skilled jobs. According to it, only 49 percent of them died due to natural causes while 28 percent died in road accidents, 13 percent while doing work involving risks and 10 percent through suicide.

“The issue of concern here is that although the government has banned Nepali women from coming here as domestic help, they are continuing to come here for the same job and last year alone 12 of them died,” Prakash Kumar Subedi, deputy chief of mission of the Riyadh based embassy told Kantipur Daily by phone. “On top of that, eight of them reportedly committed suicide,” Subedi added.

There is an estimated 10,000 Nepalis women workers in Saudi Arabia alone.

Similarly, 153 Nepali workers died in Qatar which has the largest concentration of Nepalis workers in the gulf region, near about 266,000.

According to Ram Kaji Khadka, deputy chief of Nepali mission in Doha, among the Nepali workers who have died in Qatar, 66 percent died due to heart attack. Only five percent died due to natural causes in Qatar. Similarly, 49 Nepali workers died in United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year which has more than 80,000 Nepalis employed in mostly manual jobs. nepalnews.com ag Jan 02 08