Thousands of Bhutanese refugees demonstrate at Nepal-India border
NEPAL: About 10,000 Bhutanese refugees demonstrated at the
India-Nepal border, where a day earlier Indian troops had opened fire,
killing one refugee, officials said.
The refugees gathered Wednesday at the Nepalese border town of
Karkarvitta, about 550 kilometers (340 miles) east of the capital,
Katmandu, to protest the shooting, local police official Diwakar Katwal
said by telephone.
Police stopped the refugees from marching to a border bridge to head
off possible violence, he said.
He said they were chanting slogans against Indian officials.
Thousands of Bhutanese refugees have been camping at the border area
for the past three days, demanding they be allowed to march through
Indian territory back to their homeland, the same route they traveled to
Nepal in the early 1990s.
"We want free passage through India to Bhutan, the same way we were
brought here," chanted the refugees, according to Katwal.
More than 100,000 ethnic Nepalis - a Hindu minority in Bhutan for
centuries - have been living as refugees in eastern Nepal since the
early 1990s, when they were forced out by Bhutanese authorities who
wanted to impose Buddhist culture across the country.
Most have been living in U.N.-run camps for the last 16 years.
Kathmandu, Thursday, AP |
