The United Nations says Nepal's former Maoist rebels have failed to keep a promise to allow people displaced by a decade-old civil war to return home.
The Maoists, who joined an interim government earlier this year under a peace deal, had promised to allow thousands of displaced people to return home, and to hand back property including land, homes and cattle seized by the rebels during the war.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal says the rebels are not allowing the safe return of internally displaced people.
It says there are reports that people who are trying to return are being chased away and says there are also cases in which returnees are being beaten by local Maoists.
The UN says it has observed an absence of neutral and independent law enforcement in many areas, and says there is widespread de facto Maoist control of government and society as well as limited freedom to associate with political parties other than the Maoists.
