Nepal must find its missing people - Red Cross

KATHMANDU, Feb 14 (Reuters) Nepal must resolve the ''painful humanitarian issue'' of 812 people missing from a decade-long Maoist revolt against the monarchy, the International Committee of the Red Cross said today.

Nepal's multi-party government and the former rebels have agreed to set up a panel to investigate the missing people, such as Bipin, the 21-year-old-son of Shanta Bhandari who was arrested by security forces in Kathmandu more than four years ago.

''He was picked up at dawn from his bed while he was staying with friends,'' said Bhandari, the wife of a Maoist official.

''From that day, I have been searching for him,'' she told Reuters. ''I am sure he will come back one day.'' The Red Cross says people went missing from all over Nepal.

''The families of these missing persons suffer intolerably from not knowing what has happened to their loved ones and they have the right to know,'' Mary Werntz, who head's the Red Cross delegation in Nepal, told reporters.

The Maoists, who controlled huge swathes of the countryside during the brutal civil war, have been accused by human rights groups of executing, kidnapping and torturing people.

They say the country's poorly trained army and police had an equally poor record in respecting civil liberties during the conflict, in which more than 13,000 people were killed.

Under a peace deal reached in November, the Maoists have joined a provisional parliament and begun to lock up their arms under UN watch.

REUTERS KD RN2007