Kathmandu, May 2 -- They have spent years waiting for land to live on and cultivate. Instead, they are facing hardship as squatters. A nationwide campaign to clear public land has further deepened their struggles. Homes have been demolished, property destroyed, and families displaced into makeshift shelters. Women, children and the sick have been hit hardest, and the approaching monsoon is set to worsen already dire conditions.

Despite constitutional guarantees designed to ensure housing and social protection, more than 1.2 million landless people remain without secure land or shelter. Successive governments have acknowledged the scale of the problem. Since 1990, nearly one and a half dozen commissions and committees have been formed to ...