Birmi Basnet (left), aged 36, Lali Basnet (centre), aged 44 and Najit Bisnet, aged 40, in their small lodging of Khalanga. The three of them live here, in two rooms of this size, with seven children. In 1999, Najit Bisnet was a teacher in the village of Pipal and was member of the Nepalese congress party, as for his brother in law (Lali’s husband). As they refused to leave their political establishment, the Maoist kidnapped them and tortured them, during several days. Their aggressors left them to be considered dead, after having cut Najit Bisnet’s forearm. His brother in law did not survive. From now on the family lives at Khalanga, the county town in the district where the governmental forces are recluse. They survive thanks to the women’s little jobs and to Najit’s teacher’s salary, who has been practising once more for the last few months. Except from a minor governmental subsidy, the family has received no help since it found refuge at Khalanga.
Since the insurrection in 1996, the victims from the exactions committed either by the Maoist or the royal army are numbered in hundreds of thousands and a third of the 12.000 deaths caused by the conflict (estimation generally retained) are civilians. Today in Nepal, the populations find themselves clamped between two camps.
November - December 2005 - Rukum - Nepal.
© Pierre-Yves GINET