The Nepal-Bhutan 15th ministerial joint committee meet, which concluded in Thimpu on Wednesday, has decided to repatriate the Bhutanese refugees falling under the categories 1, 2 and 4 of the Jhapa-based Khudunabari refugee camp at the earliest, The Himalayan Times said Thursday.

The daily quoting Dr. Madan Kumar Bhattarai, spokesperson at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said both the sides were working on the “implementation schedule” agreed upon in Thimpu.

“We have decided to repatriate all refugees of the camp except category 3 people,” Dr. Bhattarai said. “We also agreed to initiate verification of Bhutanese refugees of Sanichare refugee camp in Morang.”

The Joint Verification Team had categorised 12,183 Bhutanese families of Khudunabari camps in four categories. First category people were genuine Bhutanese (293), second category people were those who voluntarily migrated (8,595), third category people were non-Bhutanese (2,948) and fourth category people were criminals (347). nepalnews.com mr Oct 23