Indian nurses in Libya refuse to return home
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Indian nurses in Libya refuse to return home
Many returnees are morose because they have loans to clear
Thufail PT
New Delhi
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Even as the Indian government is going all out to get Indians back home from the chaos of Libya, a group of Indian women there is determined to stay on.
For a few weeks now, Libya has been burning after protests erupted against Muammar Gaddafi. The situation was considered grave enough for the Indian government to pull out all stops and ferry Indians back home at great economic cost.
But, interestingly, a few Indian girls, single and in the age group of 24-30, say they prefer to stay back amidst the turmoil. Sonia, 24, (her real name has been withheld on her request), a nurse who returned from Libya on 3 March by a special flight arranged by New Delhi, told TEHELKA a few of her colleagues refused to take the flight for reasons best known to them.
“They say that the economic crisis back home is worse than the political turmoil in Libya. They don’t mind giving it a good fight and surviving the ongoing trouble,” said Sonia. Jeena John, 24, another nurse in the same batch of returnees, said she decided to return only because her parents cried over the phone asking her to comeback.
“How can I leave my job? My father is a daily wager. I have a bank loan of Rs 4.5 lakh taken for my nursing course and for the visa and the flight ticket to Libya. Who will pay it back?” asks Jeena.
According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, there are nearly 18,000 Indians in Libya. A majority of the female emigrants are young women, employed as nurses, who come from rural middle class families of Kerala.
The livelihood of their families depends on the remittance they send home every month. Most of them are single women. Then, there are many married women who also live like singles in Libya because their husbands and family would be in India.
“We don’t have the exact figure of nurses among the returnees. But every flight from Libya has a chunk of them,” said Satya Kumar S, Development Officer at NORKA (Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department), a Kerala government undertaking.
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According to the Ministry of External Affairs, a merchant ship has carried nearly 170 nurses from Benghazi in Libya to Alexandria in Egypt. From there they would be taken to India by air. They are expected to reach India on 5 March.
There was horror on the faces of the nurses who returned, because they dealt with the victims of the violence. “At least 10-14 victims were brought every day to the casualty of the hospital where I worked. They were mostly young men, though some were children and older men and women. It was awful. They were shot from the chest to the head,” recalls Beena.
“One day, a few soldiers stormed into the hospital and dragged an injured patient out of the bed and shot him to death,” said another nurse who didn’t want to be named.
“Those who refused to return could find it more difficult in the coming days as the protest is worsening. I don’t think that a taxi driver will be ready to take them to the airport from the hostel they are living in,” worries Sonia. There were three girls in her hostel in Tripoli who refused to return.
Beena Mol, another returnee, says that 32 nurses from Kerala are still in her hostel, of whom 22 were unable to return because their passports were with their employers and 10 chose to stay back. They say there may be more in Libya who might have refused to fly back.
Every young nurse TEHELKA spoke to at the Kerala House in New Delhi, where the Keralites from Libya were provided temporary accommodation, said they have bank loans, ranging from Rs 3-5 lakh, to clear.
Perhaps because of this, many faces in the hall, where beds were provided to the female returnees, did not reflect the joy of a reunion with families.“We know our parents are worried and they are eagerly waiting for us. But how can I go back without a job. I am going to stay with one of my relatives in Delhi and look for a job here,” said Sonia.
Though Kerala produces the largest number of nurses in the country, their job prospects are poor in the state. “In Kerala nurses are paid a pittance, which won’t be enough even to clear debts taken to meet the cost of our education,” says Soumya Thomas, another returnee. “In Delhi, hospitals pay us better,” she adds.
Find attached Urdu Translation of this article in pdfThx
Ayaz
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