NEW DELHI: Deaths and disappearances surged in South Asia in 2004 fuelled by separatist conflicts and corruption, London-based Amnesty International said in its annual human rights report released on Wednesday.

Amnesty International said Nepal and Bangladesh witnessed the sharpest increase in rights violations as a Maoist rebellion raged in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom and a specialized crime-fighting force in the eastern delta nation led to a surge in deaths of suspected criminals.

In Sri Lanka, Amnesty said a split in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group led to increased fighting for territory and several deaths that have imperiled a Norwegian-brokered three-year-old ceasefire with the government of the island nation.

As well, Amnesty noted the continued recruitment of child soldiers by the Tamil rebels and numerous reports of torture by Sri Lankan police.

The report said 416 people disappeared after being arrested by the Royal Nepalese Army and police forces in 2004. The Nepal Human Rights Commission estimated the number at 707.

“The security forces were responsible for an unprecedented number of disappearances, a rise in unlawful killings, and continued arbitrary arrests and torture,” the Amnesty report said of Nepal.

The report covers the period before King Gyanendra sacked the government and assumed power in February 2005 for what he said was the government’s failure to tackle a Maoist rebellion that has claimed more than 11,000 lives since 1996.

Amnesty said the Maoist rebels also abducted and killed civilians at an increased pace in 2004 while thousands of people in the countryside have been rounded up for “political education” classes lasting from a few days to several weeks.

“The conflict intensified and there was an increase in human rights abuses by government security forces and the armed opposition of the Communist Party of Nepal,” Amnesty said.

In Bangladesh, Amnesty said at least 147 people died in 2004 in what the government protrayed as crossfire deaths between suspected criminals and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

“There were concerns that the deaths, which usually occurred in desolate locations after the arrest of the suspects, were deliberate killings by the RAB,” Amnesty said.—AFP