Anand family members and relatives mourning. Inset: Anand Sah. Photo: Neha Jha/HimalPress
JANAKPURDHAM: Anand Sah, a resident of Laxminiya Rural Municipality-4 in Dhanusha, was among the 10 Nepali students who lost their lives in the Hamas attack in Israel.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially confirmed the tragic loss of Anand Sah and the nine other Nepali students on Sunday. News of their passing has plunged not only Anand’s family but the entire Sapahi village in Laximiniya-4 into mourning.
When this scribe reached Anand’s home on Monday, his father, Soman, was being comforted by relatives as he grieved the loss of his son. Anand’s mother, Shivakali Devi, and grandmother, Basmatia Devi, fainted upon hearing the devastating news. Meanwhile, Anand’s younger sister, Aarti, was receiving medical attention on a neighbor’s veranda.
Anand, the eldest of four children in the Sah family and their only son, had left for Israel just 27 days before his untimely demise. From a young age, he had harbored dreams of doing something meaningful in the agricultural sector. He studied till Grade 5 at Oxford School in his neighborhood and completed his schooling at Angel’s Boarding School in Janakpurdham. Anand secured a full scholarship to complete his B.Sc. in Agriculture.
After completing his B.Sc, Anand was selected for a 10-month internship in Israel, along with 48 other students. However, the Hamas attack, less than a month after the arrival of Nepali students in Israel, took the lives of 10 students including Anand.
Anand hadn’t even attended a single class in Israel. He had paid a fee of $5,088 at a local campus and had planned to work for some time to send money back home, as his father had taken a loan of Rs 300,000 to support his journey to Israel. He was employed on a lime farm at Alumim in the Sadot Negev region.
On his social media pages, Anand had made a commitment to plant 10 million trees in his lifetime. He also had aspirations to establish an oxygen plant and a well-equipped hospital. Tragically, his life was cut short before he could fulfill these pledges.
Local residents had high hopes that Anand would not only bring pride to his family but also to the entire village. Mohan Pajiyar, a local resident, expressed that Sapahi had lost a bright star in Anand.
Meanwhile, the residents of Sapahi blocked vehicular traffic on the road leading to their village on Monday, urging the government to expedite the repatriation of the dead bodies.
