“I had no idea it would take this long. It’s really time to go now.”

This is what Nuwan Dimuthu (30), a Sri Lankan national said while waiting for his plane to depart at Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 at 2 p.m. June 30. Dimuthu will step on his native soil six years after entering South Korea on May 11, 2015. During that time, he never once saw his parents. Dimuthu moved the baggage he sent to his home with the help of his friend. Six years of his life in South Korea were packed orderly into seven small and large suitcases.

Dimuthu was the person responsible for the gasoline tank fire at a storage facility in Goyang. On October 7, 2018, he discovered a red sky lantern at the entrance of the Seoul-Munsan Expressway construction site in Deokyang-gu, Goyang-si in Gyeonggi, where he worked on the rebars. He became the subject of a police investigation after he lit and released the sky lantern into the sky. The lantern fell in an oil storage facility of the Daehan Oil Pipeline Corporation nearby and twenty minutes later, a gasoline tank exploded. Dimuthu’s lawyers argued, “An oil storage facility is something that should not explode even when a war breaks out.” In other words, they claimed that the explosion was not simply caused because of sparks from the sky lantern. Dry grass surrounded the storage tanks, making the area highly flammable, and during the trial, it was revealed that the flame screen was torn and could not properly block out flames. Last year, the bench in the first trial sentenced Dimuthu, charged for an accidental fire instead of a serious accidental fire, to a fine of 10 million won. Dimuthu appealed, but the judges in the second trial rejected his appeal on June 15.

“Dimuthu already said he wanted to go back when the first trial ended. But he couldn’t return to Sri Lanka because of COVID-19, so we suggested that he appeal, since he had to stay in South Korea anyway,” said Choi Jeong-gyu, a lawyer at the law firm Wongok, who came to see Dimuthu off. Dimuthu’s mother is suffering from heart disease and his father cannot move his hands very well due to cranial nerve problems. Worried about his parents, Dimuthu tried several times to go home, but each time affairs at his company got busy. After the explosion at the oil storage facility, he couldn’t go because of criminal procedures from the police investigation to his trial. That is how 983 days passed until his second trial. Dimuthu abandoned plans to make a final appeal and decided to pay the fine.

Surprisingly, he easily came up with the money to pay the fine. Civic groups gave him two million won and the company he worked for at the time of the accident gave him five million won. His five Sri Lankan friends also gave Dimuthu 500,000 won each. If he had anything to be sorry about, it was the fact that he would not likely return to South Korea. His dream was to obtain Korean citizenship and live in Korea.

He now wanted to leave this unachievable dream behind and return home, but South Korea would not let him go easily. He was busy even at the airport before his departure visiting banks and the National Pension Service office to receive his retirement allowance and exchange the money he earned while working in South Korea. Foreign workers can’t receive their severance pay immediately after they leave a workplace. Due to a policy called the Departure-Expiration Insurance, their retirement allowance is reserved, and workers can receive it in a lump-sum payment when they leave the country. A constitutional appeal was filed claiming that the policy was only a form of discrimination against foreigners since receiving the retirement allowance and leaving the country were irrelevant, but the Constitutional Court ruled that the policy was in line with the Constitution for it prevented illegal aliens. “I was nervous so I came (to the airport) early. I was worried I wouldn’t get the money I earned.” His plane was scheduled to take off at 11:40 p.m.

Even when he returns to Sri Lanka, he will not be able to see his parents right away. According to the COVID-19 prevention guidelines of the Sri Lankan government, Dimuthu will be under quarantine for two weeks. If he had received the vaccine, he could have gone straight home, but he was not able to get the vaccine in South Korea. Choi Jeong-gyu said, “Local governments issued administrative orders for all foreign workers to get tested due to concerns of transmission. If they were that worried, they should have also given them priority when rolling out vaccines. They tell them to get tested first, then push them back when it comes to vaccines. It’s ridiculous.”

But Dimuthu said, “I am grateful for South Korea.” He said, “Things ended well thanks to the lawyers and civic group people who helped me from the start (as soon as the incident occurred).” Choi said, “I’m sorry that you weren’t acquitted,” but Dimuthu kept on smiling. When the reporter mentioned Koreans who supported Dimuthu for such unfair circumstances, he said, “Still, it was my fault that I released the sky lantern. It wasn’t intentional, but it was my fault.” However, he said, “It’s sad because I wanted to have a good life in South Korea.”

Dimuthu plans to work on the farm when he returns to Sri Lanka. His Korean is good enough for him to easily use words like “arrest,” “fine,” and “prosecutor,” so he thought about working as a guide for South Korean tourists, but he decided to push that idea aside for the time being due to COVID-19. He said, “I’ll have to get married now. In Sri Lanka, thirty is old….” That is how the young man who spent his twenties in South Korea returned to Sri Lanka. Parting, Choi said to Dimuthu, “Thirty is plenty young in South Korea.”