Wednesday

50,000th Bhutanese Refugee Leaves the Camps in Nepal

This is an important bit of data for those of us working among the Bhutanse-Nepalis.  The two articles have slightly different figures.  50,000 have now left the camps for third-country resettlement. The majority (43,000+) have been resettled to the United States. The other 8,000 now live in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Britain. Of the 63,000 people that remain in the Nepal camps, 47,000 have requested resettlement. We may assume that most of these wish to resettle in the U.S. Originally, of course, the U.S. said that they would take only 60,000. If that number holds, we can expect another 18,000 ("lok-bok") in the coming year or so. That is to say, we are 2/3rds of the way through the process of receiving Bhutanese-Nepali refugees -- a process that has increased the Nepali-speaking population of the United States perhaps 5-fold.

AFP: 50,000th Bhutan refugee quits Nepal for US: ""The departure of the 50,000th Bhutanese refugee from Nepal for resettlement abroad is a noteworthy milestone," the US Ambassador to Nepal Scott DeLisi was quoted as saying."

Bhutanese Refugee Numbers Nearly Halved:  Here's another article with a bit more detailed information.

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