Damak, February 13:

Head-count in four Bhutanese refugee camps in Jhapa and Morang districts concluded today.

Secretary of the refugee camp at Sanischare in Morang, Menuka Nepal, said the counting in the Sanischare camp concluded today. She added that there are altogether 20,500 refugees living in 2,803 huts in the camp.

The head-count of 51,000 refugees living in three camps at Beldangi in Damak, Jhapa, has also been completed, a Home Ministry official, Bishnu Poudel, said.

A joint team of Home Ministry officials and the officials of the United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had begun the head-count of the refugees from November 13.

Poudel said the refugees would be provided with identity cards after the counting is over.

The number of Bhutanese refugees, which was around 80,000 when they

first entered Nepal in the 1990s, has now gone up to 1,06,000, statistics officer at

the Refugees’ Coordination Unit Office under the Home Ministry, Nirmal Raj Khanal, said.