Youth Ensnared in Nepal's War With Maoists
Youth Ensnared in Nepal's War With Maoists
(December, 2004)
POKHARI CHAURI, Nepal - On a frigid night last February, Nepalese soldiers rousted 17-year-old Reena Rasaili from the warm bed where she lay curled beside her Aunt Devi and accused her of being a Maoist guerrilla.
They smashed her feet with rifle butts and dragged her out behind the house, past a lemon tree and the stone watering bowl used by the family ducks. There, they tied her to a tree, stripped off most of her clothes and shot her in the head, her family recounted in interviews.
"If they shot her from the front, how scared would my daughter have been?" her father still wonders aloud.
Family members say Reena had relatives tied to the Maoists but denied that she was in the movement herself. The incident in this otherwise pastoral village in eastern Nepal is just one in a country where, families say, they are increasingly caught in the middle of an eight-year civil war that, after claiming 10,600 lives, is now devouring Nepal's children.
Human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of children younger than 18 have been abducted -- many in the last year -- and forced to attend indoctrination camps, or have been sent into exile by frightened parents.
Text by David Rohde
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/09/world/asia/youth-ensnared-in-nepals-war-with-maoists.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2004/12/08/international/20041209_NEPA_SLIDESHOW_1.html
Read More(December, 2004)
POKHARI CHAURI, Nepal - On a frigid night last February, Nepalese soldiers rousted 17-year-old Reena Rasaili from the warm bed where she lay curled beside her Aunt Devi and accused her of being a Maoist guerrilla.
They smashed her feet with rifle butts and dragged her out behind the house, past a lemon tree and the stone watering bowl used by the family ducks. There, they tied her to a tree, stripped off most of her clothes and shot her in the head, her family recounted in interviews.
"If they shot her from the front, how scared would my daughter have been?" her father still wonders aloud.
Family members say Reena had relatives tied to the Maoists but denied that she was in the movement herself. The incident in this otherwise pastoral village in eastern Nepal is just one in a country where, families say, they are increasingly caught in the middle of an eight-year civil war that, after claiming 10,600 lives, is now devouring Nepal's children.
Human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of children younger than 18 have been abducted -- many in the last year -- and forced to attend indoctrination camps, or have been sent into exile by frightened parents.
Text by David Rohde
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/09/world/asia/youth-ensnared-in-nepals-war-with-maoists.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2004/12/08/international/20041209_NEPA_SLIDESHOW_1.html
