Close to 100 tourists from Kerala stranded in Nepal

Although Nepal’s military has deployed troops on the streets of Kathmandu to keep order after two days of unrest that left many stranded in the Himalayan nation, it is expected that less than 100 Keralites, who were on a tourist visit to the country, were stranded in Nepal amid the ongoing ‘Gen Z’ protests against the social media ban and alleged government corruption.

Speaking to The Hindu, Sreeja Unnithan, a government clerk with the Motor Vehicle Department, Kerala, said she, along with her husband and two children, who were on a family visit there during the Onam vacation, had been stranded in the Nagarkot tourist destination, at the rim of the Kathmandu Valley, ever since the protest began. “We have managed to book four Air India flight tickets to India on Friday. However, it is not clear how we could reach the airport before the flight, as vehicle owners are not fully willing to ride through the violence-prone streets,” said Ms. Unnithan, a native of Thiruvananthapuram.

She also said that a team of 16 students from central Kerala were reportedly stranded in the same region, although they could not meet each other. A group of around 40 tourists from Malappuram and Kozhikode districts has been stranded on the road at Gosala since Monday, while another team of 14 members from Kakkodi in Kozhikode is also stranded in Nepal. Though the ban on social media was lifted by the government soon after the protest, the internet outage has left the people stranded in vulnerable remote regions of the country, said Ms. Unnithan.

A group of 12 people, including Malayali students and teachers, who were trapped in the civil unrest in Kathmandu, Nepal, are safe, according to reports. The group, consisting of 10 students and two teachers from a private college in Mulanthurthy in Ernakulam, is staying in a hostel near Kathmandu. They had gone to participate in the International Students Expo held at Kadambari Memorial College on the third of this month.

NoRKA-Roots, the field agency under the Department of Non-Resident Keralite Affairs (NORKA) has started a help desk as per the decision of the Chief Minister’s Office to assist the affected people. Those who are stranded in Nepal and need help or are seeking information about their relatives can approach the help desk. The NORKA Global Contact Centre can be contacted on 18004253939 (toll-free number) and +91-8802012345 (missed call).