DAMAK, Nepal (UCAN) -- Catholic refugees living in camps in eastern Nepal have appealed to Pope John Paul II to help them return home to Bhutan.

Four Bhutanese families wrote to the pope on April 11, Easter Sunday: "We pray to Your Holiness to directly intervene with our King, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuk, to end this human tragedy. He is religious and we are confident that he would genuinely listen to Your Holiness."

In their letter, the Catholic refugees described their "13 long years" in refugee camps as "painful, tragic and without hope for dignified return to our motherland." They described the ordeal of more than 100,000 people living in the camps in eastern Nepal as "similar to silent killings."

The four families comprise 15 Catholics, who all were baptized within the past four years.

The refugees, most of them ethnic Nepalese, fled Bhutan beginning in 1990, claiming they were persecuted or expelled due to their ethnicity. The Bhutanese government, however, claims most of these people are Nepali citizens who migrated to Bhutan.

Bhutan and Nepal have held 15 rounds of bilateral talks on the refugee issue, but no one has been repatriated. A verification process has been on hold since a scuffle in late 2003 between refugees and Bhutanese officials announcing the results in the first camp screened. According to the results, about 70 percent of the refugees in the camp would be allowed to return only under conditions including a two-year probation with limited rights in resettlement camps.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the major mobilizer of funds worldwide for refugee needs, has started pulling out of the Nepal camps in keeping with its decision to end involvement by 2005.

The Catholic refugees noted in their letter that Bhutan is a small, isolated kingdom and "the world political players do not notice us in the midst of their big political games." They asked the pope "to influence and persuade" India, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations "to help get our basic rights and human freedom back."

The letter, a copy of which UCA News received April 12 in Damak, about 280 kilometers southeast of Kathmandu, was sent to the pope by post. Copies of the letter also were made available to local Church officials and to Archbishop Pedro Lopez Quintana, the India-based apostolic nuncio to Nepal.

Indra Bahadur Chhetri, one of the Catholic refugees, told UCA News: "We are a miniscule community. We are numerically voiceless. But we have a hope, rather a strong belief, that as Catholics we are not isolated despite our ordeals."

Chhetri, 38, said the Catholic refugees came up with the idea of writing to the pope at one of the special prayer gatherings they held every Wednesday and Friday during Lent. He maintained their letter "is not merely an emotional exercise" because they know the pope "enjoys tremendous global clout."

Expressing confidence that the pope would intervene, Chhetri asserted, "Our Bhutanese king is a devout Buddhist full of piety, religiosity and compassion -- he would certainly listen to the pope's request." Chhetri maintained that the Bhutanese king has so far been "kept in the dark about our tragedy by the high officials in the Bhutanese government."

Singye Dorjee, information officer of the Bhutanese Embassy in New Delhi, when contacted by UCA News, said neither he nor the ambassador were in a position to speak on the issue, which, he noted, is handled directly by Bhutan's foreign minister.

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