UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Published purpose

April 2011- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalese were expelled from Bhutan. Most of these refugees settled in camps in eastern Nepal. On 22 March 2011, fires in two Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal left over 5,000 refugees homeless and in need of urgent assistance. CIDA’s contribution is helping the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to meet the urgent needs of the affected Bhutanese refugees by rebuilding shelter, water and sanitation facilities in the refugee camps, and by providing a small cash grant to each affected refugee household to enable them to replace possessions lost in the fires. Since one of the camps was already scheduled to close before the fire, CIDA’s support is also helping UNHCR cover the costs associated with moving the refugees to new locations, and decommissioning the camp in an environmentally responsible manner.