Watch: Hundreds of Tamil migrants stuck in Mumbai urge the two state governments to send them home
‘We are all battling for our lives. When we go to sleep we don’t know if we will wake up.’
Hundreds of migrant workers from Tamil Nadu who travel to Mumbai every year for work are now stuck there. The workers usually return home in May, but with the transport services halted in the ongoing lockdown, they have no means to head back to Tamil Nadu.
According to a video posted on YouTube, the workers are currently living in huts covered by polythene bags in a forested area. They have been given food for ten days, but they want to go back home.
“We don’t want food,” one of the workers is heard saying. “We don’t want clothes. We don’t want money. We just want to go back to our native places. That is our only request to the Maharashtra and the Tamil Nadu government. We are all battling for our lives. We don’t know if we will wake up when we go to sleep. This is a dense forest. When it rains, there will be snakes around. And we are all afraid of that.”