The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has asked the Bhutanese refugees to wait for right opportunity to go home and not to initiate repatriation process on their own.
According to a report posted on the UNHCR website, the UN refugee agency has been launching an information campaign to warn Bhutanese refugees in Nepal’s camps about the pitfalls of trying to return home on their own efforts.

“We are hoping this two-week-long information campaign will help the refugees understand the real risks and consequences of trying to return outside the framework of an agreement between the Nepalese and Bhutanese governments,” the report quoted, UNHCR’s representative in Nepal- Abraham Abraham, as saying.

On August 3, about 300 refugees from the Beldangi camps attempted to cross the Nepal-India border about 45 km from the camps to return to Bhutan. They were stopped by the Indian security forces and were stranded. Some were stoned by unknown elements, sustaining light injuries. Later the refugees were brought back to the camps by the Nepali authorities, said the report.

Levels of frustration among the 105,000 Bhutanese refugees in the seven camps in Nepal are increasing after 15 years of living in exile, and not a single refugee returning through an organized repatriation, it is stated.

“We certainly recognize the refugees’ rising frustrations and disillusionment with the bilateral process from which we have been totally excluded,” Abraham said, adding, “But any uncoordinated return movement, like the one on August 3, will be seen as a provocative and unilateral act on the part of refugees. And, an unfortunate consequence will be that political support – a prerequisite for a safe and dignified return of the refugees – will not be forthcoming.”

The UNHCR information campaign to refugees – including to those that tried to go home on August 3 – is underway with an interactive session in Beldangi I refugee camp. The largest number of refugees participated in the recent attempt to return from the Beldangi camp, the report said.

During the campaign, pamphlets have been widely distributed throughout the camps warning them of the risks of returning alone, it is stated.

“UNHCR recognizes the refugees’ right to return. But attempts to move from the camps on your own will put refugees’ security and safety at risk and create difficulties at the border points,” Misko Mimica, a UNHCR field protection officer, told the refugees, according to the report.

The refugees have agreed with what we have been telling to them, a UNHCR official who is currently engaged in the information campaign there told Nepalnews. “However”, the official added, “They all seem frustrated.”

“The Bhutanese political parties work on their own these days,” an elderly refugee said angrily after reading the UNHCR information pamphlet. “They do not coordinate with each other. The way children and women were put at risk in the recent attempt to return is a matter of serious concern,” he added, according to the UNHCR report posted in its website Tuesday.

Since 1990, some 105,000 Bhutanese refugees, forcibly evicted from Bhutan, are living in the UNHCR managed seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal.