Just Saying | Hong Kong’s Nepali youth problem reflects how it has failed the Gurkhas
Yonden Lhatoo condemns Sunday’s gang violence in Yau Ma Tei, but argues that the root causes of delinquency in the Nepali community have long been ignored
What is happening to Hong Kong’s Nepali youth? I’m getting asked that a lot after the Sunday morning gang fight in Yau Ma Tei which ended with police opening fire and wounding two young Nepali men.
I was stunned by footage of the incident that was posted online – not because of the shocking violence per se, but the fact that I was witnessing something so lawless and outrageous in a peaceful neighbourhood in Hong Kong. I’m used to it back at my old stomping grounds in South Asia, but not here in one of the safest cities in the world.
The footage shows a gang of men chasing down a lone member of another group in a Yau Ma Tei street, in full view of passers-by and residents starting to go about their business at dawn.
They corner him and lay into him with what appear to be the machetes we saw close-up later being taken away by police as evidence. They keep at it, ignoring a couple of patrolling policemen who have their weapons drawn, yelling at them to stop.
It ended with the officers firing four shots, sending two of them to hospital with bullet wounds. Three others were arrested two days later.
