Nepal - The United States this week resettled its 75,000^th Bhutanese refugee from eastern Nepal. Tilak Chand Ghimire, 44, his wife, 12-year-old daughter and 75-year-old parents, will start new lives in Akron, Ohio, where his brother resettled in 2010.

The move brings the total number of Bhutanese refugees resettled from Nepal since 2007 by IOM, in close cooperation with the Nepali government, the embassies of resettlement countries and UNHCR, to 88,770.  

Other countries participating in the resettlement programme, for which IOM provides medical screening, cultural orientation and travel arrangements, include Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom.

“I am 80 per cent excited and 20 per cent scared. I am most excited about the opportunities in the US available to people like us, refugees, like studying, education for my child, and citizenship. We are not citizens of anywhere now, but in America we have the possibility of belonging," said Tilak.

The refugees, who are of ethnic Nepali origin and are known as Lhotsampas, fled to camps in the Jhapa and Morang regions of Nepal over 20 years ago following Bhutan’s decision to revoke their citizenship and expel them. 

All subsequent negotiations to allow them to return to Bhutan failed and almost the whole 107,000 caseload are expected to eventually be resettled in third countries, notably the US.

Tilak, like many of the Lhotsampas, sees resettlement in the US as the only permanent solution open to him, but is also aware of what he will be leaving behind. "Nepal has allowed us to stay here for so long, and Bhutan is where we were born. We can never forget these places," he says.

IOM’s Nepal resettlement programme is expected to start to wind down after June 30^th, which the US has set as a cut off point for Lhotsampa refugees to express an interest in resettlement.

For more information please contact

Maurizio Busatti
IOM Nepal
Email: mbusatti@iom.int