Source : Perth Now news
The body of Bikram Lama is finally returning home to Nepal eight months after he died homeless when camped in Hyde Park in the centre of Sydney.
After being prepared for travel by Euro Funeral Services, Mr Lama’s body began the journey home on a 8.45pm flight on Friday.
The Nepalese national migrated to Australia in 2013 to study computer science, yet more than a decade later his body lay decomposing outside St James tunnel in Hyde Park for six days before being discovered.
On Friday, the dead man’s cousin Sanjeeb Syangtan Lama provided a “final update” to the GoFundMe page which raised more than $20,000 to return him home.
“Today is a very emotional day for us,” he wrote.
“Bikram is finally flying home to Nepal. After more than seven months of waiting and so many difficult moments, we can finally say that he is on his way home to his family.
“I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated, shared the campaign, sent messages, and supported us throughout this journey.
“Your kindness and support meant so much to us, and we truly could not have done this without you.”
When Mr Lama’s body arrives at Kathmandu airport, he will then be driven via an ambulance for roughly eight hours to his remote home village in central Nepal.
The coroner had only released his body in early July with no cause of death identified.
The 32-year-old lay dead in a sleeping bag in December for six days with up to 100,000 people having walked past as his body began to decompose.
Mr Lama’s cousin, Sanjeeb Syangtan Lama, started a GoFundMe half way through July to cover the costs of repatriation to Nepal where he can be laid to rest by his “grieving mother”.
He described the months after his cousin died as “one of the most heartbreaking experiences any family could ever endure”.
“His family in Nepal spent months living with uncertainty, desperately hoping and praying for answers.”
The identification process was particularly difficult due to the “condition” of Mr Lama’s body, leading to a complex process of co-ordinating DNA testing from his 73-year-old mother who lived in a remote village in Nepal.
“Just imagine what that must have been like for a mother. Waiting for months, holding onto hope, only to be asked to give a DNA sample to confirm the heartbreaking truth that the son she had been waiting for would never come home alive,” Sanjeeb Syangtan Lama wrote.
