Bhutan's forgotten people

A two-part series follows ethnic Nepalese after they were expelled by Bhutan and found themselves stateless.


In the early 1990s, Bhutanese of Nepali origin suddenly found themselves stripped of their citizenship. Bhutan enacted a royal decree of single national identity, forcing more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalese to leave. For the next two decades, they lived in refugee camps in eastern Nepal. Almost two decades later, Bhutan remains silent on their repatriation.

Now the refugee camps are emptying with the majority of people resettled in the west. But some want to stay -- clinging on to the hope of returning home, despite reports that Bhutan’s discriminatory policies have left a percentage of its population grossly unhappy.

Bhutan is known to many as the Last Shangri-la; the country of "Gross National Happiness". But behind the façade of a peaceful nation is a state that forcefully drove out a sixth of its population -- an act which has been described as a systematic "ethnic cleansing".