GAUR, Nepal -- In a small concrete shed next to Gaur town hospital in southern Nepal, the corpses of 13 young Maoists lay sprawled in a mess of drying blood. A red communist flag was bunched under one outstretched hand and outside the shed another 12 bodies were lined up in the midday sun. The gruesome scene was the aftermath of the worst single day of violence since the Maoists rebels signed a peace agreement with the government last November. A day after the carnage of March 21, leaders of Nepal's top political parties arrived by helicopter to assess the damage, trailed by journalists and human rights workers. The politicians walked across an open field still littered with the sandals of those who had fled for their lives 24 hours before, listening to the accounts of witnesses. Locals said the Maoist-affiliated Madheshi Liberation Front had set up a stage just 100 meters away from a rally being held by the Madheshi People's Right's Forum, who have been agitating for the rights of people living in Nepal's southern flatlands. The two groups have clashed in recent weeks and the situation was so volatile that local police informed the U.N. in advance that trouble was brewing.
Massacre of Maoists Threatens Nepal’s Peace Process
