| ashu |
Posted
on 12-Mar-02 11:40 PM
What follows is an email from friend who was in Mangalsen, Accham
on that fateful night.
May this war end soon, and may we all in Nepal soon live in happiness, peace
and prosperity.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
*********************************
The Maoist attack in Achham
Achham is one of the remote hill district, fall under the Far Western Development Region. The human development index showed among the backward district.
Unfortunately, on 16 February mid night at 12:45 a.m. Maoists attacked the district headquarter Manglesen and Sanfe Bagar at the same time destroyed all documents of various offices such as District Health Office, district irrigation
office and electricity authority.
The attack was started at 12:45 am and remained at 8:30 a.m. in the morning. I heard the first firing sound and shifted to next room by crawling. I sat whole night at the corner of the room. First one hour was very hard to spent heartbeat was increased and felt a kind of suffocation by the sound of bullet and bomb blasting sound regularly.
We were near the army barrack. The maoist started their attack from all sides and at one time focused on the army camp. They were able to capture the army force at 1:50 a.m.
Then they came down to the hospital premises at 2:00 a.m. and broke the door of the hospital and started the treatment of the injured person. Another team came to call the doctor, knock the door and doctor came out. They asked 'are you medical doctor, he said yes.
Then they took the doctor in the hospital. Doctor stayed in the hospital 2:30hours. They demanded key of the store and took some medicine, bandage and cotton. Doctor went back to quarter at 4:30am from the hospital. According to the doctor 3 dead bodies, 18 injured persons were there.
In the fighting, 55 army, 59 police in Manglesen and 27 in sanfe were killed and looted all arm. They killed the Chief District Officer, district investigation officer and his wife, post office assistant and one local person.
The fighting remained till 9 am because the police office was not captured. The maoist started to disperse from 7am. The first helicopter inspected the situation at 6:45 am, second 7:30 am, and third two helicopter started to firing and landed at 9:15am, drop the army.
We didn't get down in the market on 17th February due to the restricted movement. All the area was covered by smokes looks like a cloudy day. Bombs were blasting whole day. As per the local people conversation and our observation about 10,000 maoist were involved in the attack. They also had a big number of casualty.
They seemed well planned because they had 4-5 team of doctors; medical personnel with equipment and medicine enough number structure and doko (basket) to carry the dead bodies and injured person.
The situation was very tense from 17 February on ward due to security force were in very tense behave as a wild animal.
The life of the people was full of danger fear and uncertainty, any thing may happen at any time like that. No one slept nicely.
On 18 February the police and army had come to call the doctor, we asked them. Could we go in the market they said yes. Then we went to the market and met all the friends and shared all things what we observed and people and staff started to leave Manglesen.
The electricity water supply and telecommunication system were totally interrupted and no body could made the communication outside the Manglesen. But the water supply was made regular after 2 days by repairing the system. The good transportation system stoped by mule and food scarcity in Manglesen. Hotel were closed. Money crisis due to bank looted. It made every body difficult to stay.
So people were shifted temporarily due to insecure situation.
In the 19th February we departure from Mangalsen by helicopter
Effect of the attack
·Money crisis due to bank closed
·Unstable life due to not feeling secured
·Services from the offices interrupted
·Mental tension, fearness among the community people staff and their families
·No communication outside the district at that time but right now installed the 4 line VHF system in Mangalsen
·People started to migrate
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