The State of the World’s Refugees

As of 2006, approximately 103,000 Bhutanese Lhotshampas have been living in refugee camps in southeastern Nepal due to regional tensions between Nepal, Bhutan, and Indian since 1990. The Lhotshampas are descendent of the Nepalese and suffered under a series of ethno-nationalist politics in the 1980s introduced in Bhutan to restrict Lhotshampas rights in terms of citizenship, dress code, admission to schools, and permission to sell cash crops. Following large-scale protest and subsequent military intervention in 1990, the authorities expelled all Lhotshampas who could not prove they were living in Bhutan prior to 1958. They sought refuge in Nepal and the West Bengal state of India and since this time, have been confined in seven refugee camps in south-east Nepal. Although the standard of living in the camp is relatively high due to a donation of about $20 million per year, there is considerable frustration among refugees about their prolonged exile, particularly in young people. Integration into the local community remains low although the local population benefits from the cheap labour, access to more goods on the market and also make use of health care services available in the Lhotshampas camps. Resolution of the situation has proved difficult to resolve. In 2001, Nepal and Bhutan agreed on a joint nationality-verification process, which only included representatives of the respective governments and not the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. This process has been heavily criticized and plagued by problems. For example, 70% of the refugees were verified as having voluntarily migrated from Bhutan although the refugees themselves claim they were forced to sign such forms. UNHCR has also been involved in an integration initiative together with the government of Nepal Update to the case: Das Shrestha, D., (2015): Resettlement of Bhutanese Refugees surpasses 100,000 mark. Geneva: United Nations High Commission for Refugees. URL: http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/11/564dded46/resettlement-bhutanese-refugees-surpasses-100000-mark.html http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/11/564dded46/resettlement-bhutanese-refugees-surpasses-100000-mark.html [Accessed 20.10.2016] In the intervening time, UNHCR has successfully resettled all but 18,000 of the 108,000 Lhotshampas refugees. A core group of countries came together in 2007 to accept refugees into their countries: Australia (5,554), Canada (6,500), Denmark (874), New Zealand (1002), the Netherlands (556), the Untied Kingdom (358), and the United States (84,819). As UNCHR representative, Craig Sanders stated, this has been the largest and most successful resettlement program conducted to date by the UNHCR with nine out of ten refugees having been resettled.

UNHCR (2006): The State of the World’s Refugees. In: RCOA ; (2016): Protracted Refugee Situations. Surrey Hills: . URL [Accessed: 19.10.2016]