A decade after end of Nepal’s civil war, scars from Maoist insurgency remain
Nepal has since shuffled through nine governments, as political infighting has thwarted reconciliation
Sabitri Chilwal’s eyes mist over as she remembers the day 12 years ago when her husband was shot in his office and left to die in a pool of blood at the peak of Nepal’s Maoist insurgency.
Sunday marks a decade since the Maoists signed a peace deal to end a 10-year civil war that claimed more than 16,000 lives, laying down their arms and entering politics with a promise to bring change to the deeply feudal country.
The peace agreement hastened the end of a 240-year-old Hindu monarchy and transformed Nepal into a secular republic, and with it came hope that a new constitution would heal the deep fissures in the impoverished Himalayan nation.
But Nepal has since shuffled through nine governments, mostly brittle coalitions, as political infighting has thwarted reconciliation and left victims of the bloody insurgency doubtful that they will ever see justice.
It has been 10 years since the war ended and yet nothing has happened. My husband’s killers are walking free
Chilwal is among over 60,000 people who have filed complaints with the two commissions set up in 2014 to investigate the murders, rapes and forced disappearances perpetrated by both sides during the conflict.