KATHMANDU: Some 78,000 Bhutanese refugees have moved to the West from camps in Nepal where they have been living for two decades after being forced out of their homeland, the United Nations said yesterday.
The refugees have been offered new lives in the United States and other countries following the failure of years of negotiations to secure their return to Bhutan, which says they were illegal immigrants.
Another 38,000 refugees remain in the camps. All are ethnic Nepalese who fled across the border in the early 1990s, claiming persecution after Bhutan made national dress compulsory and banned the Nepalese language.
The United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a statement yesterday that 100,000 have submitted applications for the resettlement so far.
“Making 100,000 submissions and reaching nearly 80,000 departures are incredible achievements in the history of this refugee programme and for UNHCR,” said Diane Goodman, acting representative of the UNHCR in Nepal.
The programme began in 2007 following a lack of progress in years of high-level talks to secure their return to Bhutan.
Some 66,000 refugees have left for the United States, while Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain have also taken thousands.
The UNHCR said the total number of refugees to be resettled in the West is expected to reach 100,000 by the end of 2014.
AFP
