Namaste all,
The situation of Duhabi is not good at the moment, From yesterday 6 am morning, the Duhabi market is very silent due to curfew in the market area. There is a kind of war between different races of people living in Duhabi and the war with police separately. The different kind of people living there are like madheyshi, tharus, Muslims, nepalis and the each of them require that area as their own.
Activities like burning tyre, blocking of the road with laying down huge trees, running of a group of people to and fro demonstrating weapons with their slogan have become the normal activities over there. So in such condition, all the market remain closed, no means of transportation are allowed to cross through, no offices & no schools are allowed to open. So there’s a shortage of daily consumption materials & by this the price of things like vegetables, oil, gas,... have raised more than twice.
In the past few days, the livings over Duhabi have become worse and we cannot expect a better situation at least for few more days because, today morning in a police firing during war at the Duhabi bridge, a young person from the Muslim race was dead at the spot and 3 of others were seriously injured. And due to this, there’s still a curfew at Duhabi (curfew area ranges one kilometer in and outside the Duhabi main highway).
In such situation, it is not possible to go out of home. And the crossing the Duhabi main street is totally not possible. So at such condition, children from our Duhabi children home are also not allowed to go out of Duhabi home. Also the members of Duhabi home have to take great care while talking with people, visiting nearby places to collect information.
Last week, it was a bit better, so Mr. Khem from Duhabi home and Mr. Naresh as a field worker from Dharan met at Itahari and discussed for about 3 hours and have collected some information regarding Duhabi home and Duhabi condition. During that time, we had to use bicycle in order to meet at the middle point because no buses were possible during that moment. This situation is continuously going on from February 13, 2008 and this situation also exists in our project areas. Also, in Dharan, there was no market, no schools, no transportations from the past 14 days which was done by khumbuwan and limbuwan parties. They have some conditions to be fulfilled by the government and the govt is having table talk with them to meet their demands. As there is some understanding between the business houses and the demonstrators so from today, the market is opened at Dharan. However, the transportation is not opened yet. And the schools are not regular as well.
As it is not possible to make visit at Duhabi home, we use the telephone contacts at least thrice a day to know the situation and instruct the Duhabi members and console them timely. However, in a week time, we expect to have some certainty of the situation. Either this would be clearly solved or the situation becomes even worse to the maximum. So, from the election of constitution assembly, we expect all these existing problems to be solved and this would take place on 2nd week of April, 08. Additionally, there’s no current electricity. There’s power cut off in our area, daily, at least, 4 hours during the day time. And an additional power cut off during evening time.
Thank you,
Sansar, SHC, Dharan, Nepal
