KATHMANDU, Nepal — Protesters set fire to government buildings, police stations and the houses of politicians in Nepal’s capital as unrest continued for a second day Tuesday, even after the country’s leader resigned and social media restrictions were reversed.
The departure of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli with no clear replacement left the country’s leadership uncertain. Several other top officials also stepped down. A day earlier, authorities opened fire into crowds of young demonstrators, leaving at least 19 people dead, in some of the most widespread social unrest in the South Asian country in recent years.
The heads of Nepal’s main security agencies, including the army chief, issued a joint statement appealing for restraint and calling on political parties to find a peaceful way out of the crisis.
Members of the governing elite were personally targeted in the unrest in Kathmandu. The homes of several former prime ministers were set on fire.
Ravi Laxmi Chitrakar, the wife of former Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal, was critically burned in one attack, according to a leader of Khanal’s party. Oli’s home was also set on fire, as were the houses of two other former prime ministers, Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Sher Bahadur Deuba. The residence of Ramesh Lekhak, the home minister who resigned on Monday after accepting moral responsibility for the 19 deaths, was also burned.
Videos posted on social media showed helicopters airlifting ministers from their quarters in the government’s main administrative building.
The chaos stemmed from a government ban last week on major social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, which lit a fuse on years of anger and frustration over official corruption and economic inequality. Oli’s government retreated from the restrictions earlier Tuesday, and officials declared a curfew in an attempt to head off another day of protests.
A new wave of unrest quickly engulfed the capital anyway. Demonstrators stormed the main government administrative building, which contains Oli’s office. Smoke was seen pouring from the parliament building. The Supreme Court building was burned, as were the headquarters of Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal and of the Nepali Congress party.
As the smoke from the fires covered Kathmandu Valley, Nepal’s main international airport was shut down and flights scheduled to land there were diverted to other countries.
Here’s what else to know:
- Ban reversal: Social media is a critical tool in Nepal, where many citizens work abroad and send money back home. Last week, the authorities banned 26 services, including WeChat, YouTube and LinkedIn, which it said had failed to register with the government. By Tuesday morning, they were all back online.
- South Asia: The crisis follows a similar pattern to other unrest in the region. It was barely a year ago that similar scenes played out in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The country’s prime minister, long the most powerful figure in the country, disappeared after being driven from office by angry street protests. About three years ago, the same happened in Sri Lanka.
- Youth and democracy: The demonstrators in Nepal, who appeared to be mostly teenagers and young adults, have embraced the label “Gen Z protest.” Free speech is highly prized in Nepal, which has maintained robust space for debate as similar rights have shrunk in other South Asian countries.
- Economic crisis: Outrage has also been growing over economic inequality and what many Nepalese see as the government’s failure to aggressively pursue high-profile corruption cases. The country’s biggest lingering crisis centers on jobs.
- Resignations: Oli had been elected in 2024 for a fifth time as Nepal’s top official, and it’s not clear who will replace him. In all, four Cabinet ministers stepped down, including three from the Nepali Congress, which is in a coalition government with Oli’s Communist Party.