Kuala Lumpur.  26 bodies of Nepali migrant workers who have died in Malaysia due to different reasons have been waiting to be sent to Nepal since a long time. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the reason for the delay in repatriation of the bodies.

According to the Nepali Embassy in Malaysia, airlines have not begun their regular flights to Nepal yet due to travel restrictions because of which the bodies have remained stranded in Malaysia.

International airlines have not been able to receive enough passengers to operate chartered flights to Nepal and Nepal Airlines has also not been able to fly its wide-body plane to Malaysia due to the same reason.

An officer at the embassy informed DCNepal that airlines operating services with smaller planes were reluctant to carry the dead bodies. “They told that only two bodies could be transported per flight. Since, 26 bodies wait to be delivered to Nepal, sending the bodies two at a time through narrow-bodied planes is impractical. We have been requesting Nepal government to send the Nepal Airlines’ wide-body plane,” he said.

“It’s saddening to have the bodies of the deceased workers abandoned in foreign counties,” Samarpan Bhattarai, general secretary of the Nepali Workers Unity Society, Malaysia, said. “We have drawn the attention of Nepal’s Minister for Labor and Social Security Rameshwar Raya Yadav to this matter.”