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 "Refugees are not born but created by states,
individuals and groups." said Sadako Ogata, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She has
rightly said that "the issue of human rights and the problems
of refugees are inextricably linked. The vast majority of
refugees are driven from their homes by human rights abuses.
Persecution, torture, killings and the reprehensible practice
of ‘ethnic cleansing’ generate huge flow of refugees". The
Nepali-speaking Southern Bhutanese refugees just fit in her
description.
They were driven off from their homes by the racist
Bhutanese government since 1990. Over 134,000 of Bhutanese citizens, approximately twenty percent of Bhutan’s
total population, are now living in the refugee camps,
outside of camps in Nepal and India. Bhutan is
thus, responsible generation of highest per capita refugee in
the world.
While refugees from such
countries as Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan and former Yugoslavia
were victims of armed conflicts or civil war, refugees from
Bhutan were forced to leave their country not because of civil
war or foreign intervention but because of the racist and
ethnocentric policies and feelings of the Government against
the Nepali-speaking citizens of southern Bhutan, called
Lhotshampas. They have become victims of the
government’s racist and 'ethnic
cleansing policy". Please Click on
Introduction to start.
Results of verification and categorization of
Khudunabari refugee camp June 19.2003
Please click on What is New
for recent updates.
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