Nepal: Humanitarian Implementation Plan (HIP) Nepal/Refugees from Bhutan (ECHO/WWD/BUD/2014/01000) Last update 15/10/2013 Version 1

NEPAL/Refugees from Bhutan

The activities proposed hereafter are still subject to the adoption of the financing decision ECHO/WWD/BUD/2014/01000

AMOUNT: EUR 800000

1. CONTEXT

With a total estimated population in the range of 26.5 million, Nepal ranks 157/187 in the 2012 Human Development Index. ECHO's Integrated Analysis Framework for 2013-14 identified moderate humanitarian needs in Nepal. The vulnerability of the population affected by the crisis is assessed to be very high.

In the early 1990s, in the sequence of the adoption of new citizenship laws in Bhutan, more than 108 000 - approximately 20% of the then Bhutan's population – Lhotsampas’ fled or were moved to Eastern Nepal, where they lived in seven refugee camps run by the UNHCR. TheLhotsampas’ are an ethnic group close to Nepali, some of whom had been living in Bhutan since the 19th century.