Deuba lambasts Maoists for recruiting child soldiers

Prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Friday condemned Maoist terrorists for forcing children to work as soldiers and using them as human shields to loot banks and police posts.

“Maoist terrorists in Nepal have perpetrated inhuman acts by forcing innocent children who want to go to school to wield guns and by using them in terrorist activities forcefully,” he said.

“They have not only forced the children to wield guns but also used them as human shields while looting banks and police posts, thereby killing innocent children,” Deuba said while co-chairing an interactive round table of the special session of UN General Assembly.

The programme was organised by the United Nations on children and their future along with president Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia. Prime minister Deuba referred to the unrelenting efforts being made in Nepal to reduce child death rate along with the maternity death rate and urged the international community to isolate the terrorists as they have been posing hindrance to the campaign to alleviating poverty, starvation and illiteracy.

Meanwhile, Deuba met his Bangladesh opposite number Begum Khaleda Zia in New York. Deuba, the current chairman of SAARC, and Zia discussed joint efforts in putting an end to terrorism in South Asia and on strengthening mutual relations between the two countries.