Soldiers hunt for children abducted by rebels

Soldiers today continued to search for hundreds of students thought to have been taken hostage by communist rebels in a mountainous area of western Nepal, a day after rescuing some 600 children, officials said.

The rough terrain and remoteness of the area were making rescue efforts difficult, said Gopalraj Timilsina, an official at the district administration office in Palpa district, about 160 miles west of Kathmandu.

Last Tuesday, communist rebels took about 200 students from Kotmal village in Salyan district, about 250 miles west of Kathmandu, the army said. Then on Friday, rebels raided a number of rural schools in Palpa and nearby Tahanu district, taking with them several hundred high school-age children.

Yesterday Royal Nepalese Army soldiers recovered about 600 of those children, mainly from Niskot village which lies in both districts.

Although the exact number of children taken by the rebels was unclear, Timilsina said hundreds more children were still being held and that their whereabouts were unknown.

The rebels have been fighting since 1996 to overthrow the constitutional monarchy and replace it with a communist state.

In the past, the rebels have whisked students away for a few days to try to indoctrinate them with revolutionary ideology, and the children are usually returned safely. It was not known if this was the purpose of last week’s abductions.

Soldiers and guerrillas did not clash during yesterday’s rescue operation and that there were no casualties, the army said. The rebels fled before the army reached the village, said a local official.

The guerrillas, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Tse Tung, have stepped up their violent campaign since February 1 when King Gyanendra took control of the government. The king said the power grab was in part necessary to end the insurgency that has killed more than 11,500.

In the latest fighting, four rebels, three army soldiers and a policeman were killed in Sandheni area.

The battle lasted for two hours on Sunday evening in the area, about 100 miles south-east of Kathmandu.