The two spent a night at Rajarani before arriving in Dhankuta Bazaar on Wednesday morning, from their village in Shukrabare, some two hours away from the district headquarters. They came to attend a photography exhibition of missing people’s families in the hill town located in eastern Nepal.
“Why isn’t his photograph here? It should be on the wall,” Bishwokarma questions of his youngest son, Santosh, who turns 24 this year.
Santosh was studying in Grade 9 when former Maoist rebels took him on July 25, 2000. Thirteen days later, Bishwokarma heard news of his son’s death on the
radio; but without any strong physical evidence, he refuses to believe that Santosh is no more.
This is not just Bishwokarma’s reality but of over 1,300 families who are still awaiting news of a member who went missing during Nepal’s armed conflict between 1996 and 2006.
“It’s difficult to live this way each day, in hopes of his return,” Tilak Prasad Rai pours his grief. From Akhi Salla in Thalthale, Dhankuta, Rai is a member of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
Rai’s son, Bijay Kumar Rai, the eldest of five siblings, had just turned 31 when he disappeared during a visit to Kathmandu in July 2002. The former Village Development Committee Chairman, too, was detained by the army in different barracks and detention centers for 18 months in August 2003. He was eventually freed, but Bijay never returned home.
“We received a letter from Bijay with an address in Budhanilkantha after three years, stating that he was okay. But when we went searching for him, we couldn’t find him,” shares the father, adding that he can’t point a finger at any one perpetrator.
“Has he been imprisoned? Is he abroad? Is he dead? If he’s dead, then who killed him and where? We want evidence.” Both Rai and Bishwokarma, like most families of missing persons, want answers to these questions.
For them, the relief money of Rs 100,000 offered by the government doesn’t close the chapter, but only acts as a temporary band aid.
“It’s the mother who suffers the most,” Rai reveals the condition of his wife, who despite having other children, still yearns for her eldest one to come home.
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According to the study, “Families of Missing Person in Nepal,” released by International Committee of the Red Cross Nepal (ICRC) in April 2009, 90% of those missing are males, out of which, 81% are married. In addition, 71% of the men were between 18 and 35 years, and were sole breadwinners of their families.
The study, conducted over four months in 2008 with 86 families, reveals that a family with a missing person faces several difficulties, from economical to psychological and psychosocial.
While Bishwokarma’s hope of being cared by this son in his old age has been snatched away, for Siwa Devi Tharu of Bardiya, the absence of her husband, Tula Ram Tharu, has left her with five daughters to support.
With over 200, Bardiya has the longest list of missing people from the armed conflict. Tula Ram was abducted from Manpur in Tapara by the then Royal Nepalese Army in October 2002, along with five others.
“I believe that he’ll come back someday,” she states in the documentary, “Shadows of Hope,” released by ICRC on August 6, 2010. She refuses to carry out his last rites and still wears ornaments of a married woman, despite facing social stigmas for doing so.
“The villagers say that he’s gone, but why should we believe them? Without his body, how can we trust what others say?” asserts 71- years-old Ir Bahadur Tamang of Belhara, Dhankuta. He looks far into the hills and points, “The Maoists took my son to Khoku in February 2005, and for five-six months, we were told that he was eating well.”
The sudden news of his son Bir Bahadur Tamang’s death came as a shock to his family. However, without information on how and where he was killed, they refuse to believe that Bir Bahadur is dead.
“It was a hassle to get our relationship certified because he’s missing,” explains Dor Bahadur, one of Bir Bahadur’s four brothers. “We had to gather over a dozen people from our village to stand testimony for the issuance of the certificate,” he continues, holding out a passport-size photograph of Bir Bahadur – the only picture they have of him.
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ICRC’s study showed that 40 families wanted the bodies of their missing members if they are truly dead. Many were not asked the question, because they believe that their respective kiths are still alive.
The International Day of the Disappeared is observed each year on August 30 to remember those who have gone missing, and to raise awareness of the gravity of the issue, which ironically, is often forgotten.
Nepal’s 10-year-long insurgency, which ended in 2006, claimed more than 16,000 lives. The number is over 10 times as many as those who went missing during the armed conflict. But for those families who are still waiting for their loved ones to come back home, this goes beyond numbers.
Somewhere out there are their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. For them, each day is a struggle to live through, and yet, they do so – because they still have hopes.
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