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Missing persons in Nepal: the right to know
21-08-2008 Photo gallery
In 2001 following the breakdown in the truce between the government and the Maoists, 20 young men left home in Jogimara, Dhading District to work on an airport runway being built 800 km away in western Nepal. Seventeen of them never returned.
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In 2001 following the breakdown in the truce between the government and the Maoists, 20 young men left home in Jogimara, Dhading District to work on an airport runway being built 800 km away in western Nepal. Seventeen of them never returned.
Six years on, some of their families still nurture hope of their return, while others fear that they are dead. Most families reluctantly performed funeral rites for their missing relatives. The families have questions they want answered, they want the status of their loved ones made public and, above all, they want closure.
Most of the devastated families, among them 18 children and 10 wives, lost a breadwinner. Hundreds of families across Nepal and thousands worldwide share similar fates.
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Six years since the incident occurred, he has no tears left. “No father should have to perform his son’s funeral,” laments Bel Bahadur, “it breaks my heart to think that I’ll never see him again.” After rumours of his son’s death reached the community, Shrestha performed funeral rites for him so as not to be branded as impure by neighbours. In her grief Raj's mother poisoned herself. Shrestha has never received an official response from the authorities concerning the fate of his son or acknowledging the impact of his disappearance on his family.
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“We didn’t have enough to eat, so I made my young son go to work in Kalikot. Now look what happened to him,” she says, tears in her eyes."
“My son is the first thing I think about when I wake up every morning, wondering if he will be home for dinner with the family that night. When he doesn’t show up at night I console myself that he will be here by next morning,”
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Their mother, Moti Maya Gurung, is convinced they will return one day. “They went to earn money. I still think they’ll come back. But it’s been so long. What can I do?”
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Bir Bahadur Chepang, father of the missing Bikas Chepang, has nine family members who go out to work in other people’s fields. Yet, every year the family has food to last only six months.
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Sankha Bahadur Gurung refused to perform funeral rites for his sons because he had not seen their bodies. When his sister died people started calling his family impure, relatives would not accept water from members of the Gurung household. He was prohibited from touching his own sister. “I performed the last rites for my sons with a very heavy heart. If I had not done it, my entire family would have been ostracized.”
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Bishnu Chepang, father of Kumle Chepang, pictured with his grandchildren, tries hard so that Kumle’s children do not feel their father’s absence. Samita, the youngest, was still in her mother’s womb when Kumle disappeared. After more than six years of waiting, Bishnu has no idea how long he can continue hoping that his son will one day return.
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“We can’t read or write,” they say, “we don’t know where to go, who to talk to, who to meet with so that something is done about our loved ones.”
The ICRC is urging the authorities to clarify the fate and whereabouts of all those who went missing as a result of the conflict and to grant them an official status. Its head of delegation in Nepal said, “we are recommending that the government of Nepal grant those missing in Kotbada the status of missing persons. This will make their relatives eligible for government support, be it financial, psychological or legal.”
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