KATMANDU, NEPAL, March 10, 2008: After more than 15 years of waiting, the first Bhutanese refugees in Nepal have started to leave for a new life in other countries. More than 100,000 Nepali-speaking Bhutanese people have been in refugee camps in Nepal since the early 1990s. The mainly Hindu people were forced out of Bhutan, a Himalayan kingdom which has a code of national conformity. Bhutan, which maintains that most left voluntarily, has never allowed any to return to the country.
Those who left Bhutan made up about one-sixth of the country’s population. Despite many rounds of talks none have gone back and India does not allow the refugees onto its territory which lies between Bhutan and Nepal. Some months ago the U.S. and some other countries agreed to accept tens of thousands of the refugees.