When Hom Bahadur Gharti left Nepal for Malaysia in 2002 through a labour broker, he expected to find work and build a better life. Instead, he ended up stranded in a foreign country for 24 years, cut off from his family and living illegally.

The 57-year-old from Righa in Galkot Municipality-11 eventually returned to Nepal on February 27, after being found in a severely debilitated condition in rural Malaysia.

Gharti never found the job he had been promised. He moved from place to place looking for work, eventually taking whatever labouring jobs he could find in rural areas. Over the years, he lost contact with his family. Without legal documents, money or a way home, he remained in Malaysia illegally.

His health deteriorated. He developed a serious eye condition but could not afford treatment. Eventually, he became so weak that he could no longer properly care for himself.

Back home, his disappearance placed a heavy burden on his family.

Gharti had left behind a debt incurred to finance his migration. His wife, Kalpana, raised their children while working as a farm labourer and gradually repaid the debt herself.

Years passed without any word from her husband. Villagers eventually assumed he was dead. Kalpana, however, continued to hope that she might one day find him.

She endured gossip and accusations in the village but kept waiting for news.

“I kept hoping that I would find him,” she said. “But I never really thought he would come back.”

That hope was revived 24 years later when a photograph of a Nepali man living in desperate conditions in a rural part of Malaysia surfaced on social media. Gharti’s family recognised him in the photograph and contacted Galkot Municipality.

Rajana Upadhyay, a psychosocial counsellor at the municipality, alerted the district administration and the Migrant Resource Centre in Baglung.

“The information was passed to the Department of Consular Services, the Pravasi Nepali Coordination Committee, the Nepali Embassy in Malaysia and Nepali organisations there,” Upadhyay said. “With everyone’s support, Hom Bahadur was rescued and brought back to Nepal on February 27.”

His family took him for treatment after his return. But he has yet to recover. He has lost his eyesight and has not fully recovered from the physical deterioration caused by years of hardship.

When Gharti left Nepal, his sons were still young. Kalpana worked to pay off the migration debt, raised the children and eventually arranged their marriages. Today, the sons who once depended on her are working and supporting the family. They are now caring for their father.

After spending more than two decades abroad, Gharti returned with little to show for his years of labour. His health had been severely damaged, and he had lost his eyesight.

Officials say his prolonged disappearance was linked in part to his undocumented status and loss of contact with support networks. But it remains unclear why he stayed out of contact for so long.

“We have not been able to establish what happened to him all these years because he is still physically and mentally very weak,” Upadhyay said.

By the time he arrived in Nepal, Gharti was blind and physically frail. He was unable even to manage his own personal hygiene, making it difficult for officials to establish what had happened to him in Malaysia.

He is now staying at home with his family and receiving care.

Ganga Rijal, a counsellor at the Migrant Resource Centre in Baglung, said it was impossible to determine what work Gharti had done in Malaysia because he had no documentation.

“Because he had no documents, we could not secure compensation, relief or insurance benefits for him,” Rijal said. “We have been urging migrant workers to work only after obtaining labour approval.”

She said Gharti’s case was a stark reminder of how seemingly minor decisions before migration could put both workers and their families at risk.

“People should learn from cases like this,” she said. “A simple mistake can put a migrant’s life at risk and leave an entire family in distress.”

Under the Safer Migration Programme, a bilateral initiative of the Nepal and Swiss governments aimed at protecting Nepali migrant workers and their families throughout the migration cycle, and through the Migrant Resource Centre, 167 people from Baglung, including 147 men and 20 women, have received assistance after encountering problems abroad.

The programme has helped 55 people gain access to justice, Upadhyay said. It has also helped secure a combined Rs26.667 million in insurance payments, relief and compensation for affected migrants and their families.

During the last fiscal year, the centre provided counselling on safe foreign employment to 8,870 people from the district who obtained passports.