page_title: Refugee crisis
section_title: Nepal
hierarchical_section_title: Refugee crisis / Modern and contemporary refugee crises / Asia / Nepal
caption_attribution_description: Lotshampa refugees in Beldangi Camp
context_page_description: Refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants.
  A crisis could occur within the country, while attempting to leave, or while on the move to a safe country, or even after arrival in a country of asylum. A situation can be called a crisis, either from the perspective of the forcibly displaced persons, or from the perspective of the receiving state, or both.
  According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of January 2019, 70.8 million had been displaced worldwide.
  In 2016, an estimated 362,000 refugees crossed the Mediterranean Sea in attempts to reach Europe due to dangers in their home countries. In the first half of 2017, over 105,000 refugees and migrants entered Europe through the Mediterranean. On 27, September, 2019 a boat carrying at least 19 people destined for Chios Island capsized and seven people were killed, including five children and two women. As of 2019, 63,311 people had crossed the Mediterranean towards Europe and at least 1,028 people had died as a result of drowning.
context_section_description: After the 1959 Tibetan exodus, there are more than 150,000 Tibetans who live in Nepal. These include people who have escaped over the Himalayas from Tibet, as well as their children and grandchildren. In Nepal the overwhelming majority of Tibetans born in Nepal are still stateless and carry a document called an Identity Card issued by the Nepalese government in lieu of a passport. This document states the nationality of the holder as Tibetan. It is a document that is frequently rejected as a valid travel document by many customs and immigrations departments. The Tibetan refugees also own a Green Book issued by the Tibetan Government in Exile for rights and duties towards this administration.
  In 1991–92, Bhutan expelled roughly 100,000 ethnic Nepalis known as Lhotshampas from the southern part of the country. Most of them have been living in seven refugee camps run by UNHCR in eastern Nepal ever since. In March 2008, this population began a multiyear resettlement to other countries including the United States, New Zealand, Denmark, Canada, Norway and Australia. At present, the United States is working towards resettling more than 60,000 of these refugees in the US as a third country settlement programme.
  Meanwhile, as many as 200,000 Nepalese were displaced during the Maoist insurgency and Nepalese Civil War which ended in 2006.
  By 2009, more than 3 million civilians had been displaced by the War in North-West Pakistan (2004–present).
caption: Bhutanese of Nepali origin who fled to Nepal in the early 1990s.
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