Thread by @latimes

On July 9, 2015, 33-year-old Subash Tamang and 3 Nepali coworkers hired a taxi outside the Saudia Arabian power plant where they lived and worked, headed for a service where they could send money home.

What happened next ended Subash’s life...temporarily.
latimes.com/world-nation/s…

The taxi collided with a tractor trailer, killing three of the men instantly. Subash and the driver, 25-year-old Tejendra Bhandari, were airlifted to a hospital where one died. The other remained in a coma for months.
latimes.com/world-nation/s…

Weeks after the crash, Subash’s wife received a body in Nepal and cremated it in accordance with Buddhist customs.

But in September, back in Saudi Arabia, the surviving crash victim woke up only remembering one thing: his name was Subash Tamang.
latimes.com/world-nation/s…

The case of mistaken identity was just the beginning of a years-long quest for answers.

Subash and coworkers were among thousands of Nepalese who travel abroad for work each year.

They can earn up to 3x the daily wage of a worker in Nepal but the work is punishing & under Saudi Arabia’s system of kafala, the legal status of migrant workers is tethered to employers

Rights groups, labor experts and international organizations call the kafala system abusive and exploitative — the United Nations said it “facilitates contemporary forms of slavery.”

To date, Hyundai, the $40 billion dollar company Subash was working for in Saudi Arabia, has only paid the family of Tejendra Bhandari about $3500 for the mixup.

Both families struggle to stay afloat during the pandemic.

Perhaps 1,000 of Hyundai’s roughly 16,000 employees in Jeddah are Saudi citizens, and the rest are foreign workers, a Hyundai official said. The company prefers Nepalis, Indians and Filipinos, the official said. latimes.com/world-nation/s…

Reporter @mollymotoole began reporting this story to untangle the tale of mistaken identity but unfurled a larger, sadder story along the way about migrant laborers in Saudi Arabia.

Read her reporting: latimes.com/world-nation/s…

Learn about how @mollymotoole uncovered the story of Subash Tamang, Tejendra Bhandari and the thousands of Nepalese workers laboring overseas: latimes.com/world-nation/s…