Family members and relatives of Chandra Bahadur Rana Magar, one of the 12 Nepalis killed in the suicide bombing in Kabul. Pic: RSSA Nepali parliament member has criticised the Canadian government for ignoring the safety of security guards from Nepal who had been hired to protect its embassy in Kabul, 12 of whom were among the 14 killed in Monday's bus bomb.
Speaking during the zero hour of Parliament on Tuesday, Chudamani Biswakarma ‘Jangali’ of the ruling UML party said: “Our citizens were killed in Kabul also because of the negligence on the part of the Canadian Embassy in Kabul."
After the session, he told Nepali Times: “The Nepali guards were left unprotected. They used to be taken to work at the Canadian Embassy without any security measures. It was sheer negligence on the part of the Canadian government.”
A day after 12 Nepalis and two Indians of Nepali origin were killed in the terrorist attack in Kabul, MPs asked the Nepal government to take urgent measures to protect citizens forced to work in dangerous situations in high-risk countries like Afghanistan.
They asked the government to lobby the Canadian government to provide compensation for the families of the victims and treatment of the injured. They also asked the Nepal government to penalise labour recruiters illegally sending Nepalis to restricted warzones.
Although it is legal for Nepalis to go to work in Afghanistan through registered agencies, a significant number of them reached there through unregistered recruiters. The Department of Foreign Employment in Kathmandu says only 323 Nepalis are working legally as security guards in Afghanistan, but the real number is said to be more than 8,000.
On Monday, a lone suicide bomber walked up to the bus carrying 14 security guards, 12 of them Nepali, and detonated a bomb vest. The guards had been hired by a private security company to protect the Canadian Embassy in Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, in a statement Tuesday, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Dion, expressed his condolences to the families and friends of the Nepali and Indian security guards killed in the Kabul attack.
He said: “I offer my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the Nepalese and Indian security guards killed, and I wish a speedy recovery to those who have been injured. Many of the victims have been part of our embassy family for years, and they will be remembered for their service in the protection of the men and women at the Embassy of Canada to Afghanistan.”