US studies Nepal refugee problem

By Navin Singh Khadka
BBC correspondent in Kathmandu

About 100,000 refugees from Bhutan live in camps in Nepal

A top US official arrives in Kathmandu on Monday to try to help resolve the 14-year-old old Bhutan refugees crisis.

Assistant Secretary of State for Refugees Arthur E Dewey will meet government officials and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Talks are set to focus on the refugees' repatriation and their resettlement.

Mr Dewey is also due to visit camps in eastern Nepal where more than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees have been lodged for nearly a decade and a half.

US Embassy officials said after his visit to Nepal, Mr Dewey was scheduled to go to Bhutan and India.

Disputed survey

The refugees hope US efforts will lead to the resolution of the humanitarian crisis they have been suffering.

It was after the visit of a senior US official in 2001 that verification of refugees in one of the seven camps by a joint Nepal-Bhutan committee began.

The results showed that only less than 3% of more than 12,000 verified refugees were forcibly evicted Bhutanese citizens and that 70% voluntary migrated from their homeland in Bhutan.

Bhutan has agreed to provide citizenship to those who were found to be forcibly evicted but will keep in camps those who are verified as voluntarily migrated.

The refugees rejected the results, claiming they did not reflect reality. They claim almost all of them were forcibly evicted from their homeland in southern Bhutan.

Since the results of verification in the one camp were made public last year, the issue has been deadlocked.