There are seven refugee camps in the eastern part of Nepal in the Jhapa & Morang district which were established by United Nations High Comission for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1992 and 1993. There are six camps in the Jhapa district and one in the Morang district. Between 1992 and 1993, around 100,000 Bhutanese were forcefully evicted by the government of Bhutan. Most of them belong to Nepalese origin. Since 1988, this group faced a lot of hardships including rape and torture from the Bhutanese government. Finally they were forced to leave the country in order to save their lives.
The camps are made up of clusters of huts made out of bamboo, thatch, plastic, etc. All the huts are made in rows, having little or no gaps. Between the rows, small gaps are kept where doors of the huts are facing. The size of each hut is very small where hardly 4 to 5 people can live. Sometimes seven to ten people are forced to accommodate which becomes very congested. During the summer, nearly 60% of the rain leaks from the unsafe roofs of the huts soak all the materials including bedding and eatables. UNHCR used to provide limited food stuff every 14 days and kerosene oil and coal for cooking food. People cook food by themselves in each family and share among their family members. They do not have any choice of food. Sometimes they eat half of their stomach. There is no electricity in the camps. The nights are real nights, no sign of light. People eat early and go to bed early. There is water supply in the camps which tends to be insufficient and people often have to fetch water from nearby streams. Streams often cause water born diseases and take the lives of thousands of innocent Bhutanese.
In terms of health care, primary health posts are established in all camps which provide primary and emergency care. The health workers are untrained and sometimes the patients are wrongly treated. For major health problems, patients are referred to local hospitals outside of the camps. But in the recent years, no secondary health care provided for aged people.
Normally, people are compelled to live in the premises of the camps. If they need to go outside, they need to seek permission from camp authority who only gives permission for limited tenure. However, students get long-term permission for their higher studies. In the camps, usually small children go to school and adults have no work. Some adults go to adult schools and others remain at their huts bearing little hope to go back to Bhutan.
The life in the camps is really miserable and monotonous. They are out of reach from anything going on outside. No news circulation, no TV. Sometimes there used to be clashes between the locals and those residing in the camps and sometimes they face torture from the police as well. Also, there is evidence of rape cases in the camps by the locals. Thus the life in the camp, especially for grown up girls, is really tough. Sometimes there used to be murder and robbery cases in the camps, which make the people really hopeless. My maternal uncle is a vivid example of murder.
The author of this excerpt, Lok Nath Bastola, described how he felt while writing about the life in the refugee camps.
“The life in the camps is really heart touching, people who face knows the fact. Who goes there and see knows the grievance and real camp's life. Really I sobbed while writing this because I felt as if I am back to the camp again.”
