Red Cross says 800 disappeared in Nepal's insurgency

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday said nearly 800 people disappeared during Nepal's decade-long insurgency.

The findings were disclosed in the Nepalese capital Wednesday by Mary Werntz, of the ICRC in Nepal.

'ICRC has the names of more than 800 people who remain unaccounted for in the wake of the armed conflict. The families of these missing persons suffer from not knowing what has happened to their loved ones and they have the right to know', she told reporters.

ICRC said it had collected the names after interviewing family members of the missing people across Nepal.

'The majority of the missing people were allegedly under the responsibility of the security forces,' said Werntz, but declined to give other details.

The ICRC will make public names of the missing people on February 15 in a local newspaper in an attempt to locate them as well as put press on the government and the Maoists to disclose any relevant information.

Both the security forces and the Maoist rebels have been blamed for serious rights abuses including extra-judicial killings, abduction and torture.

In November, the government and the Maoists signed a comprehensive peace deal that formally ended Nepal's decade long insurgency in which nearly 15,000 people died.

Nepal's Maoist ex-rebels are now part of the interim legislature and are poised to enter the government once the United Nations completes registration of Maoist combatants and lock up their weapons.