KATHMANDU: It has been 15 years since 12 Nepalese youths working for a contracting firm in Iraq were brutally killed by a group of Ansar al-Sunna terrorists.
In 2004, Iraqi terrorists took hostage of 12 Nepali youths. They were forced to lie face-down in a ditch and shot down at the back of the head.
A video was posted on a website to show the terrorists beheading a Nepali youth and shooting the rest 11 in what has been said as the first mass slaying of foreign workers during the Iraq crisis.
On this day, people in Kathmandu and elsewhere went on a rampage against manpower agencies to protest the murder. Irate crowd vandalized around 229 manpower companies and set several of them on fire accusing them of having recruited the victims.
A total of Rs 20 million worth of property was damaged in the incident.
Since then, Nepal’s manpower companies have been observing today Bhadra 16 (September 2) as a black day.
The government then banned the export of Nepali workers in Iraq following the murder of 12 Nepali workers in Iraq. However, the trend of sending Nepali youths to Iraq has not stopped through illegal means.
Around 50 thousand Nepali workers are said to have been still working in Iraq, though the actual number of them is not yet ascertained. According to government estimates, around 5 thousand Nepali nationals, mostly female domestic helpers, go to Iraq each day via India, according to Uma Tamang, legal adviser at Maiti Nepal.
Comment