ISAS Insights

The condition of the 100,000 Bhutanese refugees currently stranded in the seven makeshift camps in eastern Nepal is getting precarious with each passing day. For the last 15 years, there have been little progress in the repatriation of these refugees of Nepalese origin as well efforts to improve the conditions in their camps, particularly relating to proper sanitation, drinking water, safety and in meeting basic daily needs. It is evident that the political instability in Nepal and the dilly-dallying tactics adopted by Thimpu have caused insurmountable trouble to the refugees. The Druk regime wants to deliberately buy time and wait for the refugees to forget about going back to southern Bhutan. Kathmandu, on the other hand, has been engrossed with its own internal troubles that the issue has remained on the backburner for a considerable length of time.