South Asian Conference on Refugees starts

Kathmandu, May 2: A South Asian conference on refugees has commenced here today with the objective of deliberating on the problems faced by the refugees in South Asia and ways of addressing them.

Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Anup Raj Sharma inaugurated the two-day conference jointly organised by Centre for South Asian Studies and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

On the occasion, the NHRC chairman said economic, social and security challenges were growing for Nepal due to the influx of refugees and stressed on the need of their proper resettlement.

He stated that the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal have been sent to the Western countries for resettlement and the NHRC has been constantly monitoring the Bhutanese refugees and giving recommendations to the government on this.

Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies Nischal Nath Pandey said the conference has been held with the objective of resolving the refugee problem which was becoming complicated.

According to him, there are 40 thousand refugees in Nepal and the refugee problem is burgeoning in South Asia too due to various reasons including political and religious. Nepal mainly has Bhutanese and Tibetan refugees. A large number of Bhutanese refugees has been sent for third country resettlement.

Delegates from all the SAARC member countries except Afghanistan are taking part in the conference in which each country will present a working paper on the situation of refugees and challenges in respective country. RSS