“We don’t know where to put our belongings or where to go. We don’t have anyone we can rely on,” Urmila Rai, 58, said on Friday afternoon as she struggled to pack up her things while staring at her tin-roofed home.

She does not know where she will spend the night. No one is offering her a place to stay, and there is nowhere to go. As she kept looking back at the emptying room, her eyes filled with tears.

“The bulldozers are coming. I don’t even have any strength left to protest,” she said, breaking down.

Like Urmila, other residents in a squatter settlement at Thapathali in Kathmandu were also rushing to move their belongings. Some were loading goods onto vehicles. “We are going to Bhaktapur, we will lease land and start over,” one man said with optimism. But beside him, Urmila was silent, exhausted, only sighing.

“I have lived here with my daughter for many years. Every monsoon brought hardship, but we managed to survive somehow. Now, the government is permanently evicting us,” she said.

Fear has gripped the settlement after authorities ordered squatters to vacate by Saturday. Prime Minister Balendra Shah, in a meeting with security chiefs, instructed the removal of squatter settlements along riverbanks in the Kathmandu Valley. Repeated loudspeaker announcements have been calling on residents to leave.

In 2022, when Shah was mayor, a similar eviction drive in Thapathali led to clashes and injuries, forcing the city authorities to back down. Now, with him as prime minister and the order resurfacing, residents say they are in fear.

Some have already begun leaving.

“We have fought many times, but we are too tired to fight anymore,” said one resident who refused to be named.

For 49-year-old Junga Bahadur Magar, the question is simple but unanswered: where do they go now?

Government announcements and bulldozer warnings have left residents unable to sleep. “They told us over loudspeakers to move children and elderly people to safety. But I have ageing parents. Where are we supposed to take them?” he said.

“Where do we go?” Magar said.

They have been searching for rooms nearby, but struggled to find lodging for anything under Rs10,000 a month.

Driven by poverty, his family came to Kathmandu from Rautahat 30 years ago. “I arrived here when I was 14 and started weaving woollen carpets. Later, I worked as a bus help. Now, I survive on daily wage labour,” he said.

Last year’s floods submerged his home and left him with a severe infection in the leg. “Doctors at Bir Hospital recommended amputation. With treatment, I just managed to save my leg,” he said, showing his unhealed wounds.

The memory of being forced to sleep outside during the floods still haunts him. Now, the threat of eviction has taken away even his sleep.

What troubles him most is not only eviction but the lack of alternatives.

“If we had somewhere to go, we would leave. But at least give us a safe place,” he said. “The state may have plans, but it cannot simply push the poor out of existence,” Magar said.

Whether it is police knocking on doors at night or loudspeaker warnings during the day, exhaustion has set in. “If someone made a movie on squatters, it would be quite a story,” he said with a faint smile.

Similarly, forty-nine-year-old Ganesh Singh Ghalan keeps looking at the house he built through years of hard work. “From tomorrow, the bulldozers will roll into the settlement. Everything will be torn down. Our life’s work will turn to dust,” he said.

Rooms inside the settlement are slowly emptying. He knows there will be no one to listen to their pleas.

A previous eviction in 2011, during Baburam Bhattarai’s premiership, still feels fresh.

“Back then, they came without notice and destroyed everything. We were left with nothing and survived on borrowed food for days. Later, we lived under tarps,” he recalled.

He later rebuilt a shelter, spending around Rs50,000. “Now even that looks like it will be gone,” he said quietly.

Orphaned at a young age, Ganesh, from Hetauda, came to Kathmandu at 16 and has lived here ever since. He married, raised children, and built his life here.

Now, he said, leaving without any alternative feels unbearable.

“A government is supposed to act as a guardian. If demolition is unavoidable, then at least give us somewhere to go,” he said. “We voted, hoping for change. Instead, we are being pushed further into despair.”

Forty-year-old Renu Rai was also searching for a room. “Where do you even find one? Everything at home is scattered, and I don’t know what to do,” she said, wiping her eyes.

A mother of four, she has lived in Thapathali for 19 years.

“I put everything I had into building this place. If the bulldozers come, it will be gone in minutes. Where are we supposed to keep our belongings?” she said.

She was busy gathering household items, wrapping them in a bedsheet and trying to keep them safe. “We need at least some clothes to get by. If we lose even these, what will we have left?” she said.

After news of the eviction spread, Anuj Magar did not go to work on Friday. “They suddenly began making loudspeaker announcements telling us to leave. We had no prior notice. We are usually out working all day,” he said.

“We earn barely enough to survive. If we have to pay rent, how do we manage?” he said.

He says the situation has left him mentally drained. “Do you think we’d be living by the river if we could afford rent?” he said.

Anuj works as a painter. The thought of losing his home has left him sleepless.

His demand is simple. “If you are going to demolish our homes, at least arrange somewhere for us to stay first,” he said.

Krishnamaya Rai had believed the new government would bring change.

“I thought things would improve, that we might finally find some relief,” she said. “But instead, it feels like we are being driven out.”

She lost her son three years ago and was already struggling financially. Poverty, she said, has taken everything from her.

Now, with eviction looming, she said she feels crushed.

“Is this how a government treats its poorest citizens?” she asked.