Hundreds of young Nepali men have been drafted into a war thousands of miles away: the Russia-Ukraine war.
According to The New York Times, most of the Nepali men who have gone to fight have enlisted in the Russian army. They have agreed because of the Russian government’s promise of giving them long-term work.
A smaller group of Nepali men have joined the Ukrainian side, which increases the chances that “young men from a poor Himalayan nation with no stake in the war” will be forced to kill each other, The New York Times stated.
According to The Kathmandu Post, the Foreign Ministry in Nepal is discouraging its citizens’ not to enlist in the war. In a statement released by the ministry, Nepali citizens are urged “not to go for security-related work in war-torn countries.”
Many have cited rampant unemployment in Nepal as the main reason for the influx of recruitment in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Binoj Basnyat, a retired Nepali Army general and a researcher at Rangsit University, told The New York Times, “Out of 500,000 youths coming onto the job market every year, only 80,000 or 100,000 get hired in Nepal. Where would the rest go?”
Nepal has a long history of sending its men to fight distant wars, and the Russia-Ukraine war is unfortunately no exception. It is disheartening to see that many men will have to fight, and die, for a foreign cause.
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