Bhutanese refugee probably killed himself due to depression
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KATHMANDU, JAN 11 - A Bhutanese refugee committed suicide in Pittsburgh of Pennsylvania in the US on Friday. It is suspected that 60-year-old Jit Bahadur Pradhan killed himself due to depression.
Pradhan, who was living in Beldangi Refugee Camp in Nepal, reached Pittsburgh under the third country settlement programme on Dec. 2.
“He was found dead hanging in a laundry room Friday morning,” Bhanu Phuyel, another refugee resettled in the same city, told ekantipur.com from the US.
According to him, the police have taken the body for autopsy.
Six members of the family were sharing a two-bed room apartment along with another family with four people. They had not received any other facility except food card.
Phuyel said that Pradhan was annoyed with the circumstances, and used to complain with his two sons that the situation there was no better than in the camp in Nepal.
More than 150 Bhutanese refugees, who were earlier taking shelter in eastern Nepal, have been resettled in Pittsburgh and outlying areas including Prospect Park and Green Tree. Sixty of them are working in a food-packing company.
Many refugees in the US have migrated to Pittsburgh from Arizona, Georgia, and other states seeking moderate weather and job oppurtunities.
According to the UNHCR, 25,000 Bhutanese refugees have been resettled in the western countries by the end of 2009. Over 23,000 are in the US alone.
The third country resettlement of Bhutanese refugees began in November 2007 in close collaboration with the UNHCR and the Nepal government.
This is probably a first case of suicide by a Bhutanese refugee in the US. However, deaths due to accident and murder (in Florida) have been reported earlier.
Two organisations — Catholic Charities, and Jewish Family and Children Services — are helping the refugees for their resettlement.
Thousands of ethnic Nepali people were shooed off from Bhutan in the late 1980s and the early 90s. Most of them came to Nepal via Indian soil seeking safe haven, and are residing in the camps in Jhapa and Morang districts in eastern Nepal.
Posted on: 2010-01-13 05:16
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