Kathmandu, March 17 – The US has pledged 1.4 million dollars for the assistance of Bhutanese and Tibetan refugees in Nepal, the UN refugee agency said today.
America has promised USD 1.15 million for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) 2006 annual budget programme for Nepal to assist the Bhutanese refugees and also allocated USD 250,000 for support to new arrivals of Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu.
This has brought a total of USD 1.4 million contribution from the US to United Nation’s Refugees Programme in Nepal, a statement from the UNHCR Nepal office said here.
The international refugee agency provides protection and assistance to some 105,000 Bhutanese refugees sheltering in seven camps in eastern Nepal since the early 1990s.
Despite several rounds of negotiations on repatriation between the Bhutanese government and Nepalese authorities, not a single refugees has been returned, the statement said.
“We strongly urge the two governments to take bold steps in order to start implementation of solutions as agreed to between them,” Abraham Abraham, UNHCR’s Nepal Representative, said.
The refugee agency also protects and assists newly arrived Tibetans in transit in Nepal, as well as responding to the protection needs of the asylum-seekers and refugees of other nationalities in Kathmandu.
