ANKARA 

Nepalese who leave their homes to work in India “go missing” there, according to a report by the My Republica newspaper.

A non-government organization, NIDS Nepal, found 165 people from three districts in the Himalayan country traveled to neighboring India for work did not return.

Tens of thousands of Nepalese leave their country every year to earn money.

The survey for missing persons has focused on rural areas and165 people identified as missing belong to Accham, Kanchanpur and Doti districts of western Nepal.

“The people who left homes for manual jobs in neighboring India many years ago have neither returned homes nor contacted the families,” the newspaper quoted the NIDS report.

NIDS Nepal chief Prakash Madai told the newspaper, “The figure is from only three districts and the number could be thousands if the study covered the other remaining seven districts.

“The families often do not report about the disappeared to the local administration affecting the collection of their exact details,” Madai said.

Nepal received remittances worth 699 billion Nepalese rupees ($6.56 billion) in 2018. “This amount is, on an average, 20 percent of the GDP,” according to The Himalayan Times newspaper.