Nepal asked Tuesday for a four-month extension of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), which has been monitoring the country's peace process since 2007. The request came a day before the expiry of the mission. The UN is due to vote on the request Wednesday, according to dpa. The mission has been helping integrate former Maoist combatants, who signed a peace deal with the government in 2006, ending a decade- long civil war. Extension of UNMIN has long been a matter of debate among Nepalese politicians. More than 19,000 former combatants live under UN supervision in seven cantonments across Nepal. The Maoists waged a decade-long war to establish a communist state, in which nearly 14,000 people died.
