Maoist rebels kidnapped more than 1,000 people, mainly teachers and students, from a remote area in western Nepal where the guerrillas have a heavy presence, government security officials said Saturday.
More than 300 teachers and 500 students from 270 schools in the district of Jajarkot were kidnapped over the past three days, security officials said, quoted by state-run radio. Other people were abducted from villages.
Nepal's Maoists, who have been waging a deadly "People's War" since 1996 to overthrow the monarchy and install a communist republic, frequently stage mass kidnappings, taking people to their camps for "re-education."
Many people who are abducted are released after being held for varying lengths of time. But others are not freed and their fate is unknown. The insurgency has claimed over 9,500 lives during the past eight years.