100 Nepali workers 'missing' in Alabama

More than 100 Nepalis working at a north Alabama DVD factory in West Virginia have been missing from the past two days, news reports said.

"The embassy is trying to find out what happened to them (Nepalis workers), whether they have actually run away or were forced out due to some reasons," deputy chief of the Nepali mission in Washington DC Kali Prasad Pokharel told Kantipur by phone, adding, "we also found out about the missing Nepalis workers through reports that appeared in news media. The embassy has not been notified of the incident till now."

The Associated Press had reported on Tuesday that the Nepalis workers vanished from a pair of apartment buildings and can't be located. The news agency had quoted Lauren Bethune, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, as saying that immigration agents were trying to determine what happened to the Nepali workers, among hundreds brought to the United States to work at a DVD factory operated by Cinram Inc.

"We do not in anyway consider it a security threat, but we do think it is important," she told AP.

However, the spokesman for a company that recruited the workers for Cinram said a contact in Nepal believes many of them have returned home.

Mary and Tim Snopl told local WAAY-TV station that first reported about the missing Nepalis workers that they rented apartments in two buildings last fall to about 240 workers from Nepal. But Mary Snopl said scores of the workers are now missing, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture, televisions and kitchenware.

"I don't know if they are living in Huntsville or somewhere else, I just know they aren't working with us and they aren't working at Cinram," she said. nepalnews.com ag Jan 31 08