By DPA
Kathmandu : Thousands of Bhutanese refugees living in camps in eastern Nepal will begin to be resettled in the US in March under a third-country resettlement programme, media reports said Thursday.
The US will assimilate 10,000 Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal under the first phase of the refugee rehabilitation programme, the English language daily Himalayan Times said.
The newspaper quoted US Ambassador to Nepal Nancy J. Powell as saying that rehabilitation officers from other countries who have pledged to resettle refugees will also start verification soon.
“We proposed the third-country settlement option after realising that it was difficult to get the refugees repatriated,” she said.
However, Powell said the US will not abandon its efforts to get the refugees repatriated.
“They left their homes 17 years ago and are leading displaced lives. If their repatriation is forced upon Bhutan, they might be uprooted again,” said Powell.
More than 107,000 Bhutanese refugees, mainly of Nepali origin, are housed in seven refugee camps in Jhapa and Mornag district in eastern Nepal.
Although Powell did not specify when the resettlement process will begin, Shankar Prasad Koirala, chief district officer of Jhapa, said Washington and Kathmandu had agreed that the first batch of refugees will leave for the US in March.
Refugees began arriving in Nepal in early 1990 complaining of persecution and harassment by the Bhutanese authorities on the basis of their religion, culture and language.
Several rounds of high-level talks between Nepal and Bhutan failed to resolve the deadlock.
The US has said it could eventually resettle over 60,000 of the refugees.
Some other countries including Norway and Canada have also said they will resettle refugees but have not made public the numbers they are willing to take in.