 KONG YEN LIN TRIPLE SETBACK: 50-year-old Jamuna Buddha lost her youngest son, a civilian police, during the conflict period in Achham when he died in battle with the Maoists. Her husband has also passed away and she was discovered to be HIV positive about two years ago. |
"We were completely outnumbered and outgunned," Chand recalls, "they had assault rifles and machine guns and mortars, and we just had .303s." The 33-year-old policeman saved himself by jumping over a perimeter wall. His comrades were not so lucky: 40 of the 80 policemen guarding Sanfe airport were killed that night. All 55 soldiers in the Mangalsen barracks and 18 others were killed. Maoist casualties are not known, but an estimated 150 people were killed that night in Accham - one of the bloodiest during the ten-year-war.
What followed was abandonment by Kathmandu, as the security forces confined themselves to their barracks. "They couldn't even protect themselves, let alone protect us," recalls a shopkeeper in Mangalsen.
Three years after the conflict ended, there is a palpable sense of relief. But while people are not being killed by war, they are dying of HIV/AIDS. Achham, with its large migrant male population in India, is Nepal's AIDS hotspot with an HIV infection rate of 10 per cent, which is double the national rate.
Most transmissions occur between married couples, as infected migrant labourers returning from India pass on the disease to their wives. There is also a worrying increase in child infections. "The people here are already poor, the disease is creating additional burden to the families," says district health officer Purshottam Shedain.
Because of its high infection rate, Achham has attracted many non-government groups. But the service is restricted to the main towns. "It's hard to reach all 75 VDCs in Achham, where there are no roads and even the ones that exist are not passable during the monsoon," explains Shedain.
Mangalsen is a 16 hour bus-ride from Dhangadi, and it is this remoteness that makes Achham so neglected by the government in faraway Kathmandu. Schools here started a new semester on 16 April, but still haven't received text books. There is only 15 minutes of electricity a day, if at all. The long winter drought means there is virtually no water supply in the district capital.
"It's so hard to work here," says Jhapat Thapa at Sanfebagar's primary health care centre. The power and water shortage makes even basic services difficult to provide. Last month, the situation was worse because diesel supplies had run low because of a prolonged shutdown of the Tarai.
Principal Kiran Kunwar of Deepika Academy in Mangalsen remembers the battle eight years ago. "There were bullets flying through the windows, and the children and teachers were hiding under the beds. Fortunately no one was hurt," recalls Kunwar.
But now, having survived the war the school battles apathy. Loma Sharma is concerned about the quality of education in Achham. "There's an exodus of talented teachers to the cities," he says, "no one wants to stay and teach here."
Despite all odds, there are efforts to address the district's huge health and education backlog. A community-based Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission treatment for HIV is available at health posts. Rural sanitation conditions are also improving. Ten VDCs were declared open defecation-free zones after the construction of latrines, but the shortage of water has made it difficult to make a dent on water-borne diseases.
