Forensic experts to probe Nepal burial site
HELSINKI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Finland said on Wednesday it would send two forensic experts to Nepal to investigate what may be a burial or cremation site of civilians who disappeared during the country's decade-long war against Maoist rebels.
Nepal's human rights commission said in December it had found a site with half-burnt logs, partially buried pieces of clothes and plastic bags on a forested slope in the army-protected Shivapuri National Park, 15 km (10 miles) north of Kathmandu.
Finland will send Professors Helena Ranta of the University of Helsinki and Pekka Saukko from the University of Turku on Feb. 4 to Shivapuri for two weeks to carry out preliminary investigations on the request of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), the foreign ministry said.
"I think they contacted us thanks to our previous efforts and Helena Ranta's good reputation. She has been in similar operations in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq," Director of Civilian Crisis Management unit at the foreign ministry, Mikko Kinnunen, told Reuters.
Hundreds of civilians went missing during Nepal's anti-monarchy Maoist rebellion, which ended a year ago.
Nepal's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said in December it was told about the site by relatives of some of the 49 people who disappeared from army barracks in Kathmandu in 2003, an incident the UNHCR had said needed investigation.
Human rights activists say both Maoist rebels and Nepal's army captured people on suspicion of being enemy informants or sympathisers, and some may have been tortured or even killed.
Nepal's multi-party government and the Maoist rebels signed a peace deal in November 2006, formally ending the decade-long civil war against the Hindu monarchy.
More than 13,000 people were killed during the conflict and at least 200,000 were displaced. (Reporting by Sami Torma; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
