US prepared to settle 60,000; 16 already sent

New Delhi, October 02: The United States of America has repeated that it can settle up to 60,000 of the total 106,000 exiled Bhutanese living in UNHCR camps in Nepal for the last 17 years.
 
Ellen Sauerbrey, the US assistant secretary of state for refugee affairs, quoted as saying by the Associated Press that Australia and Canada also have indicated they would be willing to resettle some of these ill-fated people.

"The United States has come forward and said we are willing to resettle a very significant part of this population," AP quotes Sauerbrey as saying to reporters in Geneva, where she was attending a conference at the UNHCR. "We think over the next three or four years that we can easily absorb 50,000 or 60,000 of the people who are now in these camps."

Sauerbrey is also reported to have praised Nepal for having recently given permission to UNHCR to carry out a census of the camps, which will find out actual number of the people living in camps at present and thereby help facilitate their resettlement elsewhere.

She said Nepal provided 16 people with exit permits recently, including three young women who were sexually exploited, and these people have since been resettled in the US.
 
In July, UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees Judy Cheng-Hopkins said she was optimistic the issue of the Bhutanese in Nepal would be resolved soon, saying some donor nations had indicated they would be willing to take in some of them refugees. Bhutan News Service