Nepal PM urges Bhutan to take back refugees

Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal urged Bhutan to take steps for return of Bhutanese refugees, local media reported Thursday.

During the meeting with Bhutan Economic Affairs Minister Lyonopo Khandu Wangchuk Wednesday, Prime Minister Nepal requested Bhutan to start repatriating refugees and allow them to return to their homeland.

"The Bhutanese minister said he would take up the issue with his prime minister and foreign minister," local newspaper The Kathmandu Post cited Rajan Bhattrai, foreign affairs adviser to the prime minister, as saying.

Some of the refugees, who got an opportunity to settle in a third country, including developed countries, have committed suicide and the issue could be more complicated in the future, which suggests that "third country settlement was not a way out of the problem", Bhattrai said, adding that the prime minister has asked the Bhutan side to allow refugees to be repatriated.

Seven different refugee camps in eastern Nepal have housed Bhutanese refugees since two decades. At least 25,000 have been resettled in different Western countries including the U.S., Australia, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, and the Netherlands, according to the Kathmandu Post.

Source: Xinhua