Kathmandu, April 16 -- For a month, the empty streets and parks of Sharjah, the third-largest city in the United Arab Emirates, were home to Ramesh Budhathoki and nearly 40 other Nepalis.

From mid-February to mid-March, they slept on the sidewalks and in public parks, surviving on food distributed by the Nepali community and others. After they resigned from their job, which was neither paying them as promised nor providing accommodation, they had been left to wander the streets with no place to live and no money to feed themselves.

"We have slept under the open sky and survived on water for many nights," Budhathoki told the Post over the phone from Sharjah.

It was only on March 20 that the UAE chapter of the Non-Resident Nepali Associa...