Najit Bisnet, aged 40, in company of one of his daughters, in his small lodging of Khalanga. In 1999, he was a teacher in the village of Pipal and member of the Nepalese congress party, just as his brother in law. 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, Najit lives in Khalanga, the county town of the district where the governmental forces are recluse, in company of his wife and sister, as well as seven children. The family survives from the women’s little jobs and Najit’s teacher’s salary; he has once more been practising for a 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