Living in Limbo Tibetan and Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal Sudeshna Thapa, Yangchen Dolker Gurung & Jeevan Baniya Introduction to Nepal’s Refugee Population By the end of 2018, Nepal was home to 20,800 refugees, 55 asylumseekers and 579 ‘others of concern’.1 While Tibetan and Bhutanese refugees account for a large majority of Nepal’s refugee population (64% and 31%, respectively),2 more than 500 refugees and asylumseekers from other countries have been living in Nepal since the early 1990s.3 Near 108,000 Bhutanese refugees were living in Nepal in the early 2000s, prior to the implementation of the third-country resettlement programme for them in 2007.4 Nepal has also been hosting a small community of Rohingya refugees who have made their way into Nepal after fleeing violent persecution in Myanmar since 2012.5 1 These are figures made available by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), actual numbers may vary. See UNHCR, ‘UNHCR yearend report: Nepal’ (Kathmandu: UNHCR, 2018), accessed November 20, 2019, http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/pdfsummaries/GR2018-Nepal-eng. pdf. For the UNHCR ‘persons of concern’ are asylum-seekers, refugees, returnees, the internally displaced and stateless people. See UNHCR, ‘Handbook for Emergencies’ (Geneva: UNHCR, 2007), accessed February 20, 2020, https://www. ifrc.org/PageFiles/95884/D.01.03.%20Handbook%20for%20Emergencies_UNHCR. pdf]. 2 Ibid. 3 Refugees from other countries include those from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Somalia, Iran, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo. See US embassy in Nepal, ‘Nepal 2018 Human Rights Report’ (Kathmandu: US embassy in Nepal, 2018), accessed October 1, 2019, https://np.usembassy.gov/wpcontent/uploads/sites/79/Country-Reports-on-Human-Rights-Practices-for-2018. pdf. 4 Michael Hutt, ‘Editorial’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research (EBHR), no.43 (Autumn-Winter 2013). 5 See Lindsey A. Hedges, ‘living on the margins’, Nepali Times, May 25, 2018,