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KATHMANDU, Friday (AFP) More than 7,000 people have died in Nepal since the beginning of a Maoist insurgency in 1996, officials said.

Army and home ministry officials said altogether 7,076 people, including rebels, soldiers, police and civilians have been killed since the Maoists began their struggle to overthrow the constitutional monarchy in 1996.

A total of 776 of the dead were civilians, while 970 were policemen and 219 soldiers, they said.

More than 5,000 guerrillas have died, including 4,050 who were killed since November last year when the army was deployed by the government to fight the Maoists for the first time.

Meanwhile Royal Army headquarters spokesman Colonel Dipak Gurung revealed that at least 126 Maoists were killed in army operations in western Nepal in September and earlier this month.

Gurung said the deaths came in two operations in the districts of Rolpa and Rukkum between September 19 and October 12, which the defence ministry revealed earlier, but had not given a death toll for.

He also said a clash on October 28 at Rumjatar airport in the Okhaldhunga district, near the Mount Everest region, 290 kilometres (180 miles) northeast of Kathmandu had left 42 rebels dead. Earlier the death toll had been put at 32.

"Our armymen are well trained but for the first time 11 months ago they were assigned in the field to fight with the Maoist terrorists and they were not efficient in the field in the beginning," Gurung said.

"But now our men have learnt the tactics of fighting and they are efficient and become smarter in order to counter the Maoist terrorists."

He said the army and police were carrying out their anti-insurgency operations separately but were co-ordinating with each other.

Nepal's government has asked India to help prevent rebels crossing over the porous border into India and Gurung said: "Indian security personnel are co-operating with us with vigilence and they have been helping to apprehend Maoists who try to cross over to the Indian soil." 

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