BHAJAN: Four children of Prem Bahadur Nepali and his wife Yamuna Devi Nepali of Binada village of Bajhang’s Maulali Village Development Committee 4 are in a helpless situation and leading miserable lives as both their parents died of HIV/AIDS.

These hapless children of an abjectly poor dalit family have been surviving by begging from their relatives and neighbours. Often, they are compelled to sleep without eating anything for days on ends.

Prem Nepali, the sole breadwinner of the family who had gone to Nandra Pradesh of India in search of better job opportunity had been affected with the disease while he was working there. He died in January 2007 of HIV/AIDS four months after his return from India.

While his wife Yamuna who had also been affected with the disease through her husband, died after two years in February of 2009. “Since then, the kids are living in a miserable condition with no one to look after them,” Katak Nepal, a local, told this daily.

The villagers have been giving them food turn by turn to kids who are living in their delapidated hut. Ramesh Nepali, 14,the eldest children of the four has been compelled to quit school and instead graze his cattle and work for his neighbours to earn two square meals a day for himself and his siblings. He has 3 siblings — 11-year-old Juna Nepali, 8-year-old Manu and 4-year-old Kale.

Meanwhile, Village Development Commmitee secretary Dharmaraj Yogi said the children were provided Rs 5,000 by the Village Development Council.

Belu Malla (name changed) an HIV victim from a neighbouring Village Deveopment Committee said neither the government nor the Non-Government Offices were supporting the hapless kids.