On 8 September, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported that the number of Bhutanese refugees who have been resettled in third countries has exceeded 20,000, and a further 5,000 are expected to leave the country by the end of 2009.

The latest group, a young family from Beldangi II camp, joined the more than 17,600 already in the USA. Other refugees have left the seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal for Australia, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark and the Netherlands. They had come to Nepal from Bhutan in the early 1990s, fleeing ethnic tensions.

At the start of the resettlement programme in 2007, the US authorities offered resettlement to at least 60,000 refugees. So far more than 17,000 have gone to states such as Arizona, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Texas, while about 91,000 are still in Nepal.

JRS at work

Supported by Caritas Nepal and UNHCR, the JRS Bhutanese Refugee Education Programme provides primary, secondary, vocational and special needs education in 42 schools, and manages childcare and youth centres in the refugee camps. Teams provide information and advice to refugees considering resettlement, and offer English classes to those who have opted to be resettled. JRS continues to advocate for the option of voluntary return to Bhutan for those refugees who wish to do so.

Of the more than 108,000 refugees living in seven camps in the Morang and Jhapa districts of eastern Nepal – about 800km from Kathmandu – nearly 78,000 have submitted their declaration of interest in resettlement. The refugees were expelled from Bhutan in the early 1990s after the government established new eligibility requirements for citizenship that effectively deprived many ethnic Nepalese, known as Lhotshampas, of citizenship and civil rights.

Story dated: 16/09/09

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