KATMANDU: Nepal’s new government must investigate the fate of hundreds of people still missing in Nepal despite the end of a civil war with Maoist rebels, the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.
A 2006 peace deal between the government and the Maoists ended a decade-long conflict against the monarchy and the former rebels are now heading a coalition government after their surprise victory in a constituent assembly election in April.
During the war, which caused more than 13,000 deaths since 1996, both government troops and the rebels were accused by rights groups of human rights abuses including killings, arbitrary arrests and kidnappings.
Mary Werntz, head of the Red Cross delegation in Nepal, said at least 1,227 families had sought the help of the Geneva-based agency for information about their loved ones.
“They face the ongoing pain of not knowing if their loved one is dead or alive and, if dead, in which circumstances he or she died,” Werntz told reporters on the eve of tomorrow’s International Day of the Disappeared.
Meanwhile, Nepali Prime Minister Prachanda will visit India next month and it will be his first “political visit” abroad after ascending to the post last week, Nepal’s Ambassador Durgesh Man Singh has said.
“He will come here next month before he goes for the UN General Assembly’s meeting in New York (scheduled for the third week of September). We are working out mutually convenient dates,” Singh told IANS in an interview in New Delhi. “It will be his first political visit to any country,” the envoy said.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, had visited China last week — his first overseas visit after becoming the first prime minister of republic Nepal 10 days ago — to attend the Olympic Games closing ceremony in Beijing.
“Don’t read too much into it (the China visit). Had he become prime minister at the time of the SAARC summit, he would have first gone to Sri Lanka,” Singh replied.
