Monsoon leaves Bhutanese refugees high and dry

JHAPA, July 28: As soon as it starts raining, Umanath Khanal, a Bhutanese refugee living in the Timai camp, asks his children to get inside the hut. Then he climbs up the roof and asks, “Where?”. The children assist him in identifying the hole. Khanal then goes about ritually plugging the holes. [break]



For the past two years, this is how the Khanal family spends a typical monsoon day. Donors provide money to replace the roofs once every five years. But the thatched roofs supported by bamboo poles start leaking from as early as the third year, said refugees.



More than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees have been living in seven camps in Jhapa and Morang district since the early 1990s. Though temporary camps have been repaired several times, the vagaries of nature hardly ever spare refugees. “The roof keeps leaking no matter how hard I try to fix it,” said Dev Bahadur Tiwari, a refugee. “The rain spoils everything including food and clothes in the house.”



Worse still, children in the camps catch common cold and fever when they are left with no dry clothes to wear. The situation in all the refugee camps was similar, said Ratnakaji BK of Beldangi camp. However, this is not something refugees have to get along with only during rainy season. A refugee said that the wind sometimes blew their roofs away.



The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is the agency responsible for taking care of the refugees´ accommodation needs. The refugees, including Khudunabari camp Secretary Bhanu Dhungana, however, said that the LFW officials were indifferent to the refugees´ plight.



Shyam Konju, LWF´s Khudunabari camp chief, claimed that the needful was being done. He, however, refused to elaborate. Earlier, the refugees occupied as many as 18,826 huts in the seven refugee camps. With many refugees opting for third country resettlement, only about 16,000 huts are occupied now.



More than five years have elapsed since the LFW provided materials to thatch the huts.



With no help coming, some refugees have replaced the old roofs with new ones with their own money. “But only those who earn are able to do that,” said journalist Gopal Gadtaula, who reports on issues concerning the refugees.



The refugees complained that through they were provided with food and accommodation, they had to work outside to buy clothes.

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