UCA News
Contribute

Bhutan

NGOs Appeal To International Community To Aid Bhutanese Refugees

Updated: March 11, 2004 05:00 PM GMT
Support Asia's largest network of Catholic journalists and editors
Support Asia's largest network of Catholic journalists and editors
Share this article :

NGOs have urged the international community to do more to end the Bhutanese refugee crisis in Nepal now that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is withdrawing support.

Organizations working with the 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in camps in eastern Nepal framed their appeal March 1 during a meeting in Birganj, 90 kilometers southwest of Kathmandu near the Indian border.

Fifteen groups including Amnesty International, Bhutanese Refugee Support Group, Habitat International Coalition, Human Rights Watch, Jesuit Refugee Service, Lutheran World Federation and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service were involved.

In the appeal they urged the international community, mainly donors to Bhutan, "to seek the involvement of an independent, international third party to monitor the verification and repatriation of the refugees."

They cited a need for "donor governments and U.N. agencies to proactively intervene" by convening an international conference that "gives due consideration to each of the durable solutions -- voluntary repatriation, local integration and third-country resettlement."

They also called for continued involvement of UNHCR in solving the crisis "given its unique mandate to provide international protection to refugees and to seek solutions to refugee problems."

Jesuit Father Varkey Perekkatt, Jesuit Refugee Service field director for Nepal, told UCA News on March 5, "We are perturbed by the recent decision of the UNHCR to end its involvement in the camps by 2005."

Thangarajah Kugathasan, UNHCR deputy representative, told media Feb. 26 in Nepal that his agency has started pulling out of the camps.

UNHCR is the major mobilizer worldwide of funds for refugee needs. Father Perekkatt said that if it ends its role in refugee camps in Nepal, "we will be in real hot soup and the refugees would face insurmountable vulnerabilities."

The priest said UNHCR has been "winding down" food distribution in the camps. It no longer supplies chili powder and turmeric, "costly but indispensable" for the refugees, and the weekly kerosene ration has been reduced from 3.5 to 3 liters for three persons, he reported.

He added that even funds Jesuit Refugee Service and Caritas Nepal, the local Catholic Church´s development and relief agency, get for educating refugee children have been reduced in the past year. "We are worried how we will carry out the education program for 42,000 children," he said.

The refugees, most of them ethnic Nepalese, live in seven camps in and around Damak, about 280 kilometers southeast of Kathmandu. They fled Bhutan beginning in 1990, saying they were persecuted or expelled due to their ethnicity despite being Bhutanese citizens. Bhutan claims most of these people are Nepali citizens who migrated to Bhutan.

Some 15 rounds of talks have already taken place between Bhutan and Nepal over repatriation of the refugees. But according to Father Perekkatt, "there looms no whiff of possibility for the resolution of this tragedy" and even the international community increasingly is "oblivious to this crisis."

That is why, he said, international NGOs and their collaborators sent their appeal to "end the impasse afflicting the repatriation of the refugees" to countries and agencies that are major donors to Bhutan and Nepal.

In late 2003, Bhutanese and Nepalese officials completed screening of 3,158 families comprising 12,183 individuals in one camp. They were classified into four groups -- Category One for genuine Bhutanese, Two for Bhutanese who voluntarily migrated, Three for non-Bhutanese and Four for criminals.

The 74 percent of the refugees placed in Category Two are eligible to return under conditions that include living at least two years with restricted rights in resettlement camps, while the 24 percent in Category Three have no chance of repatriation. Protests and a scuffle followed the announcement of the verification results, and not even any of the 2 percent of refugees in Category One, clear for repatriation, have returned.

Father Perekkatt said it is questionable how many refugees would choose to return in the absence of international monitoring.

END

Help UCA News to be independent
Dear reader,
November begins with the Feast of All Saints. That month will mark the beginning of a new UCA News series, Saints of the New Millenium, that will profile some of Asia’s saints, “ordinary” people who try to live faithfully amid the demands of life in our time.
Perhaps the closest they will ever come to fame will be in your reading about them in UCA News. But they are saints for today. Let their example challenge and encourage you to live your own sainthood.
Your contribution will help us present more such features and make a difference in society by being independent and objective.
A small donation of US$5 a month would make a big difference in our quest to achieve our goals.
William J. Grimm
Publisher
UCA News
YOUR DAILY
NEWSLETTER
Thank you. You are now signed up to our Daily Full Bulletin newsletter
 
UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia
UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia
UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia