The number of people who died during anti-corruption protests in Nepal has risen to 51, police said.
The victims include 21 protesters, nine prisoners, three police personnel and 18 others, police spokesperson Binod Ghimire added.
The demonstrations, which left more than 1,300 people injured, were fuelled by a young generation that believes the Himalyan country’s leadership is corrupt, self-serving and nepotistic.
The protests, which began on Monday, were also against a ban on social media, with large crowds chanting: “Stop the ban on social media, stop corruption not social media.”
The leadership lifted the restrictions on social media – allowing people to use apps like X, YouTube and Instagram once again – on Tuesday.
Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned later that day after violent protests the day before left 19 people dead.
Authorities said 17 people had died in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu and the other two fatalities were in the eastern city of Itahari.
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Mr Oli’s departure came after demonstrators defied an indefinite curfew, clashed with police and set politicians’ homes on fire.
The streets of Kathmandu were quiet on Wednesday as the military imposed a curfew on the city.
The protests and disorder have been attributed to “Gen Z” – broadly referring to anyone born between 1995 and 2010.
Meanwhile, Nepal’s former chief justice, Sushila Karki, is likely to be appointed as interim prime minister on Friday, a constitutional expert consulted by President Ramchandra Paudel and army chief Ashok Raj Sigdel told Reuters.
The source, who wished to remain anonymous, added that Ms Karki is favoured by Gen Z in the country.
The 73-year-old is Nepal’s first and only female chief justice and is known for her honesty, integrity, and stand against corruption.
Her appointment is likely to be formally made after a meeting at the president’s residence, rescheduled to Friday afternoon from an initial time in the morning, a separate source told Reuters.
Nepal’s post-monarchy problems
Wedged between India and China, Nepal has grappled with political and economic instability since the abolition of its monarchy in 2008, while a lack of jobs drives millions to seek work in other countries and send money home.
Shops began reopening on Friday, among signs that normalcy was returning in the capital of Kathmandu, with cars in the streets and police personnel taking up batons instead of the guns they carried earlier in the week.
Some roads remained blocked, though streets were patrolled by fewer soldiers than before.
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Meanwhile, authorities began handing to families the bodies of their loved ones killed in the protests.
“While his friends backed off (from the protests), he decided to go ahead,” Karuna Budhathoki said of her 23-year-old nephew, as she waited to collect his body at Kathmandu’s Teaching Hospital.
She added: “We were told he was brought dead to the hospital.”
Another protester who died, Ashab Alam Thakurai, 24, got married only a month earlier, his relatives said.
“The last we spoke to him … he said he was stuck with the protest. After that we could not contact him … eventually we
found him in the morgue,” said his uncle, Zulfikar Alam.
