Young people at increasing risk

Fulkaji Pradhan shows the stitches on his abdomen, which was torn apart when a roadside bomb exploded near him. “I saw the inside of my stomach. I thought I would die,” recalled 14-year-old Pradhan, who collapsed only a few seconds later while trying to walk towards a hospital in the town of Panauti, 30 km south of the Nepali capital, Kathmandu. Pradhan and his friends had been playing on the main road when a bomb hidden inside a cooking pot exploded after one of the children stepped on it. The bomb had been left behind by a group of Maoist rebels during their attack against government security forces on 5 February in the middle of the town, which is less than an hour’s drive from the capital. The violent death of young people is becoming a depressing reality in Nepal. On 9 February, 21-year-old Asmita Chapagain was killed by a roadside bomb in Nawalparasi, 200 km south of Kathmandu. Three days later, 18-year-old student Paru Biswakarma was also killed by a bomb explosion in Rupendehi district, 250 km west of the capital. Two children aged four and nine years were severely injured and hospitalised due to bomb explosions in late February. A local NGO, Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN), estimates that at least 400 children under 18 years of age have been killed in the decade-long conflict. Most have died from bombs placed along roads by rebels targeting government security forces – many have fallen victim to crossfire, particularly in urban areas. That death toll is set to rise with an intensification of violence in 2006. In January, the rebels called off their four-month unilateral ceasefire after the government, led by King Gyanendra, failed to reciprocate, despite requests by local citizens’ groups, political parties, human rights workers, foreign diplomats and others in the international community, including the United Nations, for the government to take the opportunity to initiate peace talks. “Now more military clashes are taking place in urban areas and this has traumatised the children most,” said CWIN activist Tarak Dhital. As a result, many children have stopped going to school and started migrating to India, which shares an open border with Nepal, he noted. Dhital added that there had been many bombs left astray by the rebels along the main roads of several urban areas and despite repeated calls by citizens for their removal, there had been little effort to do so. Two international reports on children published in 2005 by Amnesty International (AI) and the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a New York-based NGO, warned of the increasing danger to children in Nepal due to the bloody insurgency. “Given the severity of the situation, and the lack of progress in peace talks, it is imperative that the UN Security Council and other high-level members of the international community provide remedies necessary to protect Nepali children before any further degradation of their current situation occurs,” the Watchlist report stated.