Chetan Adhikari

Local people living around the vicinity of Goldhap-based Bhutanese refugee camp in Jhapa have banned entry to vehicles of donor agencies to the camp site to press for development programmes in the area.

They have insisted that their demands should be addressed before the camp refugees are relocated. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plans to shift refugees staying in Goldhap to Beldangi-based camps by the end of June. The relocation is taking place in view of the decreasing number of refugees due to the third country resettlement programme.

The people residing around the Goldhap camp say the UN agency should launch development programmes to recompense what they call the problems they bore from the refugees since they were settled there two decades ago.

Among their demands are blacktopping the gravel road that links Garamani VDC with Goldhap along with Buttabari-Paglibhatti road; constructing an embankment at Deuniya River and building a botanical park in the camp.

Sarita Adhikari of a struggle committee formed by Goldhap refugees said that they were compelled to protest, as both the local administration and the UNHCR ignored their demands.

On Thursday, they thwarted the UNHCR’s plan of relocating 17 refugee families living inside the Goldhap camp. Around 300 refugee families are staying inside there.

Published on: 20 May 2011 | The Kathmandu Post