10/02/2007

For the visitor, the Bhutanese refugee camps feel normal, like a large town with especially crowded streets. The environment is clean, and the level of social organization is impressive. But the recent tensions over the resettlement offer have flared into violence twice within the past five months. This innocuous looking lot was the site of a children’s library which was burned to the ground in August by a gang of youths angered that the woman who organized the library was said to be among the leaders of those interested in resettling abroad. She has now fled the camp and is living in Kathmandu. But her mother lives in the next hut over, and remains fearful that there will be further violence if the resettlement process goes forward.