Assembly Election Results
Kottayam: Jose Chacko, wife Simi and their two kids, who left behind everything they owned in strife-torn
Libya
, now have to start from scratch. One among the nine families that arrived at Nedumbassery airport on Thursday, the family paid four times the actual rate for flight tickets to return home.
"We couldn't send home money for the past two years as transfer through banks or agencies were not possible. Also, we couldn't withdraw money as banks were out of cash," said Jose. Though the family had stayed back to transfer their hard-earned money home before returning, they lost hope and decided to leave it behind. "A Libyan colleague, Abdul Jabbar helped us. He sheltered all the nine families at his house in Motred, a sea-side city," said Simi.
Jose was working with the maintenance division of Zawiya Medical Centre in Zawiya, Libya while wife Simi was a staff nurse at the hospital. The couple had resigned their jobs and vacated government quarters three months ago. However, their return to homeland was delayed due to the shell attack on the staff apartments of the hospital on March 29 that claimed the lives of Sunu Satyan, a 29-year-old nurse and her 18-month-old son Pranav.
The family managed to transfer some cash to a travel agent to buy tickets for the return trip. Meanwhile, Norka officials said that the ticket fare would be reimbursed to all the families. "Our attempt to get flight tickets for them did not materialize due to currency exchange issues," said a Norka official.
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