Official says Nepal's peace process prompts displaced to return home

Published: 2006-10-30

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Positive steps in Nepal's peace process have prompted many of the country's internally displaced to return to their villages, said the head of Caritas Nepal. But, Father Silas Bogati said, despite the progress of negotiations between Maoist rebels and the government, most people are still hesitant about heading back to the countryside where a 10-year insurgency led by the rebels was the most violent. "Just recently we have been able to repatriate about 1,000 people back to their villages," he told Catholic News Service Oct. 26. However, people "are cautiously waiting and watching how the peace process will progress," he added. The Nepalese priest spoke to CNS during the Oct. 24-26 executive committee meeting of Caritas Internationalis, the church's international network of Catholic aid agencies. If the cease-fire holds and talks result in a stable, interim government, then "there will be more work to repatriate and resettle" the displaced, he said.

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