Drone kills Nepali worker in Saudi Arabia — Kathmandu Post
In Saudi Arabia, 45-year-old Nepali labor migrant Bharat Mahato was killed in a drone attack on October 21. He worked as a cleaner at a Saudi Aramco project site in the kingdom's Eastern Province. As Kathmandu Post reports, a drone launched by Yemen's Houthis struck the site, where workers from Pakistan and India were also killed.
The deceased man's wife, 41-year-old Indrika Devi Mahato, said that she initially received a call from a supervisor at the site, who told her that her husband had been injured and hospitalized. Later, the family was informed of Mahato's death. On the eve of the attack, he made his final video call to his wife and asked her to take care of the children.
Family asks for the body to be returned
Bharat Mahato had worked abroad for 14 years and was the main breadwinner for his family in the village of Dhekaha in Nepal's Mahottari district. He sent home about 20,000 rupees every month, including to repay a bank loan for the construction of a four-room concrete house.
Indrika Mahato took out a bank loan of 1.1 million rupees to build the house. She must now raise four children on her own and repay the debt. The family submitted an application to the district administration in Jaleshwar, asking the Nepalese authorities to help repatriate the body.
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According to Indradev Yadav, head of the district administration, the appeal was forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is to send it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to begin the procedure for returning the body. The consular department has already transferred the case to Nepal's embassy in Riyadh, which has received Mahato's death certificate.
Payments unavailable to the family
The family will be unable to receive standard financial assistance from Nepal's Foreign Employment Board and a term life insurance payment. The reason is that Mahato's work permit expired a year before his death. These programs usually provide payments of about 1 million and 1.5 million rupees, respectively.
Nepal's embassy in Riyadh urged the country's citizens in Saudi Arabia not to go outside during danger warnings, to follow official announcements by the Saudi authorities, and not to spread unverified information. According to the publication's estimate, about 400,000 Nepalese citizens work in Saudi Arabia.
