Snakes invade Nepal Maoist camps, rattle leader

KATHMANDU, May 2 (Reuters) Hundreds of snakes have invaded camps housing Nepal's former Maoist fighters, infuriating their top leader, the state-run RSS news agency said today.

Maoist chief Prachanda accused the government of ignoring the maintenance of the camps, set up under a peace deal in November that ended a decade-old civil war in which thousands of people died.

''More than 700 snakes have been killed in a cantonment,'' RSS quoted Prachanda as saying.

There are 28 camps housing 31,000 ex-guerrillas under United Nations monitoring.

Prachanda did not say if any of the former guerrillas had been bitten by snakes.

Nepal is a Hindu-majority country and Hindus consider snakes holy. Lord Shiva, one of the trinity of Hindu gods, is shown in pictures with a snake as his garland.

REUTERS ABM HS1748