<figure><img width="630" height="473" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101144/63720e1b9c7e80680e0b78fbjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Ukrainian refugee, Valia, recalls the ‘terrible conditions’ during her 1000 km journey to safety with her 13-year-old son. Photo: ED HOLT/IPS</figcaption></figure>“I never, ever, believed that anything like this could happen,” says Valia*. “Not for a second.”
Just two weeks ago, the English teacher says, she had been living a normal life in Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine with her 13-year-old son. But on February 24, she woke up to the news that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/ukraines-lessons-for-sandwiched-nations-like-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Russia had invaded</a> her country.
After spending one night in a school basement with scores of other people afraid that her town could come under Russian fire, she decided she had to try and get herself and her son <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/trapped-in-ukraine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">to safety</a> and began a 1,000-kilometre journey out of the country.
She spent days travelling in what she describes as “terrible conditions” on dangerously overcrowded trains where people became sick. It was sometimes hard to breathe properly because many people were packed into carriages. She then took buses to the border with Slovakia.
There, she waited four hours in the cold before she and her son made it over the border and then on to friends in the Slovak capital, Bratislava
“My journey may sound bad, but when I think about it, I see myself as lucky. I know some people who came from Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, and they had a terrible journey. It took some of them six days,” she says.
Valia is just one of the estimated more than 2.8 million people, overwhelmingly women and children, who have <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-flee-ukraine-as-russians-advance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fled Ukraine</a> since the Russian invasion began.
The UN has described the exodus as the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WWII</a>. International humanitarian organisations warn there are likely to be many millions more trying to leave the country in the coming weeks as what they have repeatedly described as a humanitarian catastrophe is set to only get worse.
“The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is increasingly dire and desperate. Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water, heat, electricity, or medical care. Two million people are reported to have left their homes for neighbouring countries, while hundreds of thousands more are trapped in cities desperate for a safe escape,” says Christoph Hanger, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Humanitarian organisations have described the scenes in some parts of the country as “apocalyptic”.
The conflict – which has so far claimed the lives of at least 549 civilians as of March 11, according to the UN, although the real figure is thought to be much higher – has left some towns and large parts of cities destroyed.
Infrastructure damage, Russian troops blocking roads, and constant shelling, means that in some places, there is no way to get in even basic humanitarian supplies to residents.
In the city of Mariupol, which has been surrounded by Russian troops and whose authorities have said it is essentially under siege, the situation is said to be desperate.
There have been reports of people fighting each other for scraps of food on the streets as residents begin to starve. Others are simply unable to leave their homes because of constant shelling.
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/what-does-defending-europe-mean/">What does 'Defending Europe' mean?</a>, Slavoj Žižek
Svitlana, a 52-year-old hairdresser, said her life now in the city was spent largely in bomb shelters.
“Life in a shelter is not a life. We are surviving as long as we can. People bring their food and share it in the shelter while the bombing goes on above us. We try to pretend all will be ok, but we all know many of us will die,” she says.
But even in places where there has not been fierce fighting, the toll of war is being felt.
Says Oksana, 35, who lives in Kyiv: “Even though the bombs are not falling here yet, the atmosphere of war is so stressful. The worst thing is that after a day or two, you realise it is not a movie but a fight for life and death. It is hard to explain how terrified I feel. A friend of mine filmed on his phone a Russian warplane crashing in his neighbour’s garden. My mind is simply unable to understand that this is really going on. This has to stop. Otherwise, I don’t know how people will survive and what will happen to food and medicine supplies for people.”
All across the country, medical supplies, in particular, are dwindling while hospitals and healthcare facilities have been targeted by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/ukraine-dispute-can-leave-russia-as-the-losers,259" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Russian forces</a> putting pressure on healthcare provision.
People who spoke to IPS said in some places, services are increasingly being focused solely on emergency healthcare and treating war wounded, limiting the capacity for treatment of people with chronic or potentially fatal diseases.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of medics and ambulances being targeted by Russian troops.
Evgenia, who works in the healthcare sector, managed to escape her hometown Irpin, outside Kyiv, just days before it came under heavy fire by the Russian army and was eventually largely destroyed.
She is now in Kyiv, where, she says, many healthcare services are continuing to run relatively normally. But, she says, “in some parts of the country, the only healthcare now is emergency healthcare, nothing else”.
She said any healthcare that involves outreach work has stopped in some towns and cities “because it is now very dangerous, you can get shot just being out on the street” while drug supplies are dwindling because “the roads are occupied by Russian military, and so it is impossible to move medicines from one area to another even if anyone tried to”.
And there are growing problems in the Ukrainian capital, too.
“The queues outside drug stores are long, and they’re often out of medicines now anyway,” she says, adding that NGOs and other groups involved in the response to chronic diseases like TB, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, social outreach groups for vulnerable populations, including in the LGBT community, had been forced to turn to delivering humanitarian aid on the streets of the capital rather than their usual work.
The deteriorating security and humanitarian situation is driving more and more people to flee their homes. The UNHCR reports that there are as many as 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country due to the conflict, and as fighting continues, that number is expected to rise, putting more and more strain on resources.
“If the fighting gets closer and closer to more towns and cities, especially in the west, the numbers of refugees will increase, and then there will, because of the numbers, be an even greater strain on services, within Ukraine itself as people move to escape fighting elsewhere, but also in neighbouring countries receiving refugees,” says Toby Fricker, Chief of Communications and Partnerships at UNICEF.
This is already being seen in some parts of the west of the country, which, so far, has seen relatively little fighting and is perceived to be safer, notably in Lviv, a major city in the west of Ukraine. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/ukraine-crisis-hits-nepal-economy-hard/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ukraine crisis hits Nepal economy hard</a>, Ramesh Kumar
The UNHCR has forecast as many as 4 million people will be forced to leave Ukraine because of the war.
But while leaving Ukraine provides some hope of safety, for many, the journey itself is fraught with danger, and once across the border, the effects of the conflict remain.
Many <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">refugee</a> journeys can be days long, are made in freezing weather, sometimes involve treks for dozens of miles on foot, and sometimes with limited food and water supplies.
Meanwhile, because Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 have been ordered not to leave the country to help defend it if needed, the overwhelming majority of refugees are women and children.
Humanitarian organisations have warned women refugees face an increased risk of exploitation and gender-based violence, while the abrupt separation from partners and fathers can also be traumatic for women and, especially, children, others say.
“Kids are going through having to cope with seeing, for instance, their parents have a last embrace as they go separate ways, and trying to understand why daddy isn’t going with them,” says James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson.
Organisations helping with reception of refugees in receiving countries told IPS that many people who arrive are often exhausted and deeply traumatised.
“What we are seeing very much is that people are turning up in a very deep sense of shock and trauma. Because of the speed at which everything happened, a lot of them are still in a state of confusion. The adults, most of whom are women with children, are still in a state of denial about what has happened to them, about having to leave their countries, businesses, homes, and husbands and partners suddenly,” says Fricker.
Valia, who is now working as a volunteer at Bratislava’s main train station helping the thousands of Ukrainians coming in every day from further east in the country, agrees.
“People are traumatised, but it happened so quickly that a lot of them are just in a state of massive shock. They still can’t quite believe what’s happened,” she says.
Uncertainty is also a worry for many refugees, she says. Some have lost everything, and many have been left with little money as the Ukrainian currency they brought with them cannot be changed now in many countries, and because many people cleared out their bank accounts before they left, any bank cards they have with them are largely useless.
Valia herself says she does not know how long she will stay in Slovakia, and her son wants to return to Ukraine as soon as possible. But she admits she has “no clear idea” what the future holds for her, and others.
“It’s troubling for a lot of people I speak to,” she says.
However, Valia believes she will one day go back to her homeland when peace returns to it.
“I believe I will go back to Ukraine. I speak to other Ukrainians who say they will never forgive Russia for what it has done. But I don’t hold it against the Russian people. Everyone has to come together to stop things like this happening. The world has so many other problems with climate change, poverty, diseases, etc – people should be putting energy into that and not fighting wars like this.”
Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/ukraine-climate-and-nepal/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ukraine, Climate, and Nepal</a>, Sonia Awale
*Valia is identified by her first name for her safety.
By arrangement with <a href="https://www.ipsnews.net/2022/03/refugees-recount-harrowing-escape-besieged-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR1F1LWwsc3eQFcYtk2Jp37f7ebHYyf-N2btKjtIYwc2Qr53uMR6xrsBMx0">Inter Press Service</a>.

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Harrowing escape from Ukraine

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720cb39c7e80680e0b7881jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1954" height="1140"/><figcaption>Photos: GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELTAFP / Project Syndicate</figcaption></figure>After the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Slovene government immediately <a href="https://www.total-slovenia-news.com/politics/9651-slovenia-willing-to-accept-200-000-ukrainian-refugees">proclaimed</a> its readiness to receive thousands of Ukrainian refugees. As a citizen of Slovenia, I was not only proud but also ashamed.After all, when Afghanistan <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/topic/the-fall-of-kabul">fell</a> to the Taliban six months ago, this same government <a href="https://socialeurope.eu/despite-all-the-attention-afghan-refugees-are-not-welcome">refused</a> to accept Afghan refugees, arguing that they should stay in their country and fight. A couple of months ago, when thousands of refugees, mostly Iraqi Kurds, tried to enter Poland from Belarus, the Slovene government, claiming that Europe was under attack, <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/slovenia-backs-polands-on-border-protection/">offered military aid</a> to support Poland’s vile effort to keep them out.Throughout the region, two species of refugee have emerged. A <a href="https://www.gov.si/en/news/2022-02-27-prime-minister-jansas-interview-for-planet-tv-nova24tv-and-siol-net/">tweet</a> by the Slovene government on February 25 clarified the distinction: ‘The refugees from Ukraine are coming from an environment which is in its cultural, religious, and historical sense something totally different from the environment out of which refugees from Afghanistan are coming.’Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/trapped-in-ukraine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trapped in Ukraine</a>, Nepali TimesAfter an outcry, the tweet was quickly deleted, but the obscene truth was out: Europe must defend itself from non-Europe.This approach will be catastrophic for Europe in the ongoing global struggle for geopolitical influence. Our media and elites frame that struggle as a conflict between a Western ‘liberal’ sphere and a Russian ‘Eurasian’ sphere, ignoring the much larger group of countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia that are observing us closely.Even China is not ready to support Russia fully, although it has its own plans. In a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinas-xi-message-n-koreas-221911185.html?guccounter=1">message</a> to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a day after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China is ready to work to develop China-DPRK relations of friendship and cooperation ‘under a new situation’. There is a fear that China will use the “new situation” to ‘liberate’ Taiwan.What should worry us now is that the radicalisation we see, most clearly with President Vladimir Putin, is not just rhetorical. Many on the liberal left, convinced that both sides knew they could not afford a full-on war, thought Putin was bluffing when he massed troops at Ukraine’s borders.Even when Putin <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/putin-following-hitler-losing-propaganda-war-by-slawomir-sierakowski-2022-03">described</a> Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky’s government as a 'gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis’, most expected that Russia would just occupy the two <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/what-would-russian-recognition-of-breakaway-ukraine-regions-mean">breakaway</a> ‘people’s republics’ controlled by Kremlin-backed Russian separatists or, at most, extend the occupation to eastern Ukraine’s entire Donbas region.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-flee-ukraine-as-russians-advance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepalis flee Ukraine as Russians advance</a>, Priti Thapa<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720cb69c7e80680e0b7882jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2366" height="1154"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>And now some who call themselves leftists (I wouldn’t) are blaming the West for the fact that US President Joe Biden was right about Putin’s intentions. The argument is well-known: NATO was slowly <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/29/1076193616/ukraine-russia-nato-explainer">encircling</a> Russia, fomenting <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-and-%E2%80%9Ccolor-revolution%E2%80%9D">colour revolutions</a> in its near-abroad, and ignoring the reasonable fears of a country that had been attacked from the West in the last century.There is, of course, an element of truth here. But saying only this is equivalent to justifying Hitler by blaming the unjust Treaty of Versailles. Worse, it concedes that big powers have the right to spheres of influence, to which all others must submit for the sake of global stability.Putin’s assumption that international relations is a contest of great powers is reflected in his repeated claim that he had <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/24/no-choice-but-to-invade-ukraine-kremlin">no choice</a> but to intervene militarily in Ukraine.Is that true? Is the problem really Ukrainian fascism? The question is better directed at Putin’s Russia. Putin’s intellectual lodestar is Ivan Ilyin, whose <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/25/putin-mind-words-russia-victimhood">works</a> are back in print and given to state apparatchiks and military conscripts.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/ukraines-lessons-for-sandwiched-nations-like-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ukraine's lessons for sandwiched nations like Nepal</a>, Bhaskar KoiralaAfter being expelled from the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, Ilyin <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/16/ivan-ilyin-putins-philosopher-of-russian-fascism/">advocated</a> a Russian version of fascism: the state as an organic community led by a paternal monarch, in which freedom is knowing one’s place. The purpose of voting for Ilyin (and for Putin) is to <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2018/06/an-introduction-to-ivan-ilyin.html">express collective support</a> for the leader, not to legitimate or choose him.Aleksandr Dugin, Putin’s court-philosopher, closely follows in Ilyin’s steps, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37766688">adding</a> a postmodern garnish of historicist relativism:“[E]very so-called truth is a matter of believing. So we believe in what we do, we believe in what we say. And that is the only way to define the truth. So we have our special Russian truth that you need to accept. If the United States does not want to start a war, you should recognize that United States is not any more a unique master. And the situation in Syria and Ukraine, Russia says, ‘No you are not any more the boss.’ That is the question of who rules the world. Only war could decide really.”But what about the people of Syria and Ukraine? Can they also choose their truth or are they just a battlefield for would-be world rulers?The idea that each ‘way of life’ has its own truth is what endears Putin to right-wing populists like former US President Donald Trump, who praised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the act of a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/23/trump-praises-putin-ukraine-refuting-claims-tough-on-russia/">genius</a>". And the feeling is mutual: When Putin talks about “denazification” in Ukraine, we should bear in mind his support for Marine le Pen’s National Rally in France, Matteo Salvini’s Lega in Italy, and other actual neo-fascist movements.The ‘Russian truth’ is only a convenient myth to justify Putin’s imperial vision, and the best way for Europe to counter it is to build bridges to developing and emerging countries, many of which have a long list of justified grievances against Western colonisation and exploitation.It is not enough to ‘defend Europe’. The true task is to persuade other countries that the West can offer them better choices than Russia or China can. And the only way to achieve that is to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-flee-ukraine-as-russians-advance/">change ourselves</a> by ruthlessly uprooting neo-colonialism, even when it comes packaged as humanitarian help.Are we ready to prove that in defending Europe, we are fighting for freedom everywhere? Our disgraceful refusal to <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/01/does-the-ukraine-exodus-reveal-a-shocking-distinction-on-refugees-in-some-parts-of-the-eu">treat refugees equally</a> sends the world a very different message.© Project Syndicate<a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/slavoj-zizek">Slavoj Žižek</a> is professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London.

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What does ‘Defending Europe’ mean?

<figure><img width="1200" height="574" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00c99c7e80680e0a35f7jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>(From right) Mohamad Arif Ahamadi, his wife Safika and sons Siar and Zuber. Photos: MUKESH POKHREL</figcaption></figure>Ever since the most recent Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, they had been fleeing Kandahar and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandus-little-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kabul to Kathmandu</a> in the hope of third-country asylum.  They have been waiting in limbo for years, and have been watching the shocking images from Kabul airport of their compatriots trying to escape the Taliban. This has dashed their hopes of ever returning to their homeland, but raised the prospect of a speedier asylum process. Humayun Shahzad, an Afghan refugee living in Kathmandu, has not been able to sleep ever since the Taliban began their <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/afghanistan-abandoned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rapid advance across Afghanistan last month</a> that led to the collapse of the Afghan government.  “I have been watching what is happening in Afghanistan, and thinking about our friends and family still there,” says Shahzad, who has been spending sleepless nights ever since the Taliban’s rapid takeover and the collapse of the Afghan government. “On the one hand, I have had to constantly think about how I will manage to support my family without a job here in Nepal, on the other there is also the worry about what the Taliban will do to my country,” Shahzad adds.  Like dozens of other Afghan families languishing in Kathmandu, Shahzad fled first to India and then came to Kathmandu, hoping it would be easier to apply for asylum here.  <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19109#.YTLJty2B3-Z" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Taliban forces</a> had vastly weakened in the first six years after the US-occupied Afghanistan. However, the militants then began to tighten their stranglehold in and around rural Afghanan, leaving many with the choice of either following along, or escaping their harsh rule.  Shahzad was operating a successful photography business in Grishk district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, and chose the latter. He took his family and flew to Delhi, and then to  Kathmandu in 2014. C R Ahmed had never imagined that he would one day have to flee the country that he had been born and raised in. He owned a thriving gold shop in Kandahar, and lived happily with his family through all the years of Soviet occupation, the mujahideen war, the American bombings. But when the Taliban took over for the first time more than two decades ago, he left. "The Taliban ruined Afghanistan,” says Ahmed. “They will ruin it again.” The Taliban grew out of the US-backed mujahideen fighters who drove out the Soviet military in the 1990s. They became radicalised after coming to power, and were finally banished to the fringes after the US occupied Afghanistan in 2001 following the 11 September attacks — exactly 20 years this week. The Americans retaliated against al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and initiated a state-building process with elections and governments that they backed. But corruption and mismanagement allowed the Taliban to regroup, conduct horrendous terrorist attacks against civilians and inflict heavy casualties on US and NATO forces. The West finally lost its will to fight, and US forces abruptly left Afghanistan, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/who-will-rescue-nepalis-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">allowing the Taliban to take rapid control</a>. Provincial capitals fell one by one, as Afghan forces either surrendered or were routed.  The whole of August, the world witnessed heart-wrenching scenes of thousands of Afghans flocking to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, clinging to the undercarriage of aircrafts in an attempt to flee the return of the Taliban. At the time of their departure, American and coalition forces had evacuated more than 122,000 of their nationals, diplomats, and Afghan allies from Kabul. But not everyone made it out when the last US Air Force C-17 flew out on 31 August.  The Afghan refugees in Nepal left long before the recent upheavals, but say they escaped because they knew what was coming if the Taliban took over. Zubair Ahmed recalls the Taliban’s oppressive regime making it impossible for Afghans to continue to live in the country of their birth. "Many of us Afghans wanted to educate our children, especially our daughters, and see them go on to become doctors and professionals, but the Taliban would not allow it,” says Zubair Ahmed. “And women were not allowed to leave the house. We saw what the Taliban did 20 years ago, we know what they are capable of.” With the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan once again, the doors have all but closed on the chances of Afghans in Nepal ever returning home. But life here in Nepal, while certainly safer, has not been easy at all — especially with already meagre <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-real-cost-of-nepals-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employment opportunities drying up due to the Covid-19 pandemic</a>. <figure><img width="1100" height="610" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110141144/636d00cc9c7e80680e0a35f8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Murtuza Jaffrey, 37, owned and operated a welding shop in Kandahar Province, but was forced to flee his home with his family after the Taliban threatened him for doing welding jobs for the American military. When they fled Afghanistan, his family was forced to separate. Jaffrey and his four children came to Nepal via India. Meanwhile, his mother and four siblings went to Iran.For Jaffery, the years in Kathmandu have been a constant struggle for survival. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/author/soniaawale/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The pandemic</a>, however, has made it especially difficult— he is now without a job, and has not been able to pay his rent for two months. Moreover, the Rs18,000 annual grant that the UNHCR provided for each of his children’s education has stopped in the last two years.  Like Jaffrey, Mohammad Arif Ahmadi operated a successful business in Kandahar and was contracted to install bars on the doors and windows of buildings for the Americans. “The work was good, but the Taliban would not let us live in peace, they threatened to kill me for helping the Americans,” recalls Ahmadi, who believes that Afghanistan has fallen back into the hands of “terrorists” following the Taliban victory. Unable to live in constant fear for his life, Ahmadi, his wife and four sons decided to leave Afghanistan and come to Kathmandu seven years ago. The family has been struggling to make ends meet ever since. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepal-must-prepare-for-3rd-covid-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pandemic-induced closures</a> have made it worse for the family, four of whom worked at various grill and welding shops in Kathmandu. “We do fine as long as we can find work,” says Sophika Ahmadi, “But when the jobs dry up, we are not even able to feed ourselves for the day.”For all the Afghans struggling to get through every day in Kathmandu, the journey from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-and-the-talibans-second-coming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan to Nepal</a> has been long and painful. A few, like Ahmadi and Jaffrey, paid traffickers as much as $2,000 for each family member to come to Nepal — a country unfamiliar to them in terms of language, culture and geography.Similarly, Humayun Shahzad came to Kathmandu after a broker he met in Delhi convinced him to move to Nepal, which he described as a beautiful country where he could find better opportunities. The broker charged Shahzad’s nine-member family $1,000 per person just to come from New Delhi to Kathmandu. They used up all their savings from selling their possessions in Afghanistan for the trip.“We had thought the price was worth it because Nepal was a faraway place, but the broker brought us here within two days,” Seven years later, his family is still here, and struggling to stay afloat.Shahzad was convinced to come to Kathmandu by brokers who assured him that the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Nepal would provide him with the necessary support. But the reality in Nepal has been vastly different, and Afghans living in Nepal believe that the UNHCR has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">abandoned refugees like them</a>.Now, Afghans living in Nepal have one main demand, that they be compensated for their time living in Nepal, and be resettled in third countries. Additionally, the refugees have also been imploring the Nepal government to exempt them from having to pay the fines for staying in Nepal without a visa.Without any meaningful support from UNHCR, and running out of money, the future for Afghan refugees in Nepal looks bleak.For Murtuza Jaffrey, circumstances here have worsened to the point that he is considering going back to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/bring-us-home-says-nepali-in-kabul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Afghanistan</a>, and taking his chances with the Taliban, a sentiment he says other Afghans in Kathmandu echo.“If we return to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us, and that will be it,” says Jaffrey. “Here, we feel like we are dying day by day.”

Afghans in Nepal await resettlement

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015114/636d05969c7e80680e0a5f16jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1236" height="814"/><figcaption>Lyonpo Dago Tshering served as Bhutan’s Home Minister between 1991-98 and saw the eviction of 100,000 Bhutanese from Nepal, in the world’s least-known refugee crisis.</figcaption></figure>A consortium of dozens of Bhutan organisations all over the world have sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to withdraw his country’s decision to <a href="https://www.mfa.gov.bt/?p=10758" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.mfa.gov.bt/?p%3D10758&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338744000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFe-EHR_qg7yK7RqeCBsJ9tV4d-yw">confer an award</a> to Bhutan’s former Home Minister Lyonpo Dago Tshering, saying he had violated the human rights of citizens and suppressed democracy in the country 30 years ago.The Global Bhutanese Campaign Coordination Committee for Japan Campaign 2021 sent the letter this week asking that the ‘Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star’ on Dago Tshering be revoked.‘The decision of the Japanese government to award Dago Tshering, a primary perpetrator of human rights violations and voice of democracy in Bhutan during the 1990s has come to us with surprise, pain and shock,’ the letter says.‘While we acknowledge the desire of your government to strengthen mutual relationship between Bhutan and Japan through the conferral of this award, we regret to state that this very gesture of goodness has unlocked deep seated injury and trauma that many of us Bhutanese have personally undergone during the Home Minister’s tenure,’ it adds.The letter, signed by organisations of Bhutanese in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom and United States urges the government and people of Japan to review the decision.“The entire Bhutanese diaspora has come together to raise their voice of concern against Japan’s decision to confer this award,” said Jogen Gazmere, convenor of the Japan chapter of the global campaign.The Bhutanese are regarded as the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Bhutanese-refugees-resettlement-program-ending-in-2018,4121" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Bhutanese-refugees-resettlement-program-ending-in-2018,4121&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGr2u61MHJgJco3JeIU-ZKNIn-lZg">world’s most forgotten refugees </a>after 100,000 of them (one-sixth the population) who had been living in the country for generations were <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18150#.YN1-Ny8RoWr" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18150%23.YN1-Ny8RoWr&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF8_8oP_ndTaGGqqf0gdBe__EVN1A">driven out of the country</a> by the regime beginning 1990, and with the help of India forcibly driven into Nepal.There are still <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/no-one-to-care-for-doctor-who-cared-for-everyone/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/no-one-to-care-for-doctor-who-cared-for-everyone/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHg9OPSlRd8G63QxouX2hFoapEk9g">7,000 Bhutanese in two camps</a> in southeastern Nepal, with the rest having been <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2011/08/17/over-50000-butanese-refugees-resettled/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2011/08/17/over-50000-butanese-refugees-resettled/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFyxGDjVmoTOjoGD9Vw8gXpKGt3cA">resettled in eight countries</a> around the world, nearly <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/camps-for-Bhutanese-refugees-are-emptying-but-some-want-to-return-home,2748" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/camps-for-Bhutanese-refugees-are-emptying-but-some-want-to-return-home,2748&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEeAZ2zvB4l7ku5i-4uatqX4DQ6-g">96,000 of them</a> in the United States.As deputy Home Minister of Bhutan, Dago Tshering in August 1990 issued a written directive revoking the citizenship of the Lhotshampa people of southern Bhutan. When they protested, Bhutanese activists say Tshering mobilised the state machinery to arrest, torture and evict the southern Bhutanese and render them stateless.He was promoted to Home Minister and served from 1991-1998 before being made ambassador to Japan from 1999 to 2008.The refugees spent nearly 20 years in makeshift camps in Nepal. Bhutan refused to take them back and by the time they started being resettled in third countries, the refugees numbered 120,000. Bhutan has maintained that those evicted had illegally settled in the country and were recent migrants.Bhutanese human rights activist <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17869#.YN19ny8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D17869%23.YN19ny8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHFWi3PPaeplOQHliQR_6ZaiIxbhQ">Tek Nath Rizal</a> who was an Amnesty International ‘prisoner of conscience’ and imprisoned for 10 years has said he cannot understand why Japan is honouring a man like Tshering.“I cannot fathom how a country like Japan, which has championed for the guarantee of human rights and democracy in Bhutan in various forms for years, has now decided to award Dago Tshering, a racist, ruthless and corrupt former home minister,” Rizal, who now lives in Nepal, <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/why-did-japan-award-bhutans-dago-tshering-with-the-order-of-the-rising-sun/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/why-did-japan-award-bhutans-dago-tshering-with-the-order-of-the-rising-sun/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625215338745000&amp;usg=AFQjCNECAb1DrC4i1G6Vov69wFTCBeHyYQ">wrote in the portal, The Diplomat.</a>The eviction has been described as the largest by any country in modern history in terms of the proportion of the original population, a process described by rights activists as Bhutan’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ of its people.The letter from the Bhutanese organisations to the Japanese prime minister says: ‘As the Home Minister, Mr. Dago Tshering exercised enormous power and authority, next only to the King. He misused his powers to silence and repress people often with no restraint or control.’T P Mishra, whose father was also detained and tortured by the Bhutan regime, and who is now settled in the US, says, “Japan must understand and appreciate the impact of the other side of Tshering’s career — that of the ethnic-cleansing of the Nepali-speaking population in Bhutan and the hounding of them when resettled.”

Japan award for Bhutan minister opposed

<figure><img width="1500" height="997" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922c29c7e80680e03a147jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Mohammed Daoud's family paid an agent $6,000 to get to Kathmandu. Photos: GOPAL GARTAULA</figcaption></figure>When Mohammed Daoud fled Afghanistan in 2014, he did not know where he was headed. All he wanted was to keep his family safe from the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19109#.W6ymmnszaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">never-ending violence in his motherland</a>.Daoud, a 44-year-old motor mechanic from a village near Kandahar, first came to India with his wife and four children and then on to Nepal. He paid $6,000 to an agent who brought his family to Kathmandu by bus.Daoud owned a sprawling house and a garage back home. Here in Kathmandu, he works as a mechanic for someone else. His family lives in a congested room near the Kathmandu bus park. Despite this, he is happy his family is far away from bombs and bullets.“I may not be able to feed my family well here, but I do not have to live in a constant fear of losing them,” he says.His four children were born after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2011, and grew up caught in between American bombings and Taliban terror. They watched many die in gun battles, bombs and in drone attacks. It was rare for them to see someone die of natural causes.“Only after coming to Nepal did my children know that people can also die naturally,” Daoud explains. Most Nepalis have heard about refugees from Tibet. Few know that there are also Afghans who have settled in Nepal. Like Daoud, most have come to Kathmandu from New Delhi after hearing from others that life is relatively easier in Nepal.The UNHCR has identified 53 Afghan asylum seekers belonging to 13 families in Kathmandu, and all of them live in the Samakhusi neighborhood of Kathmandu, which has become Little Kabul. Murtaza Zahfary, 34, owned a welding machine factory in southern Kandahar, and was doing brisk business until he was forced to close it down because security forces saw it as a place where the Taliban insurgents could make weapons. <img width="640" height="556" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922c59c7e80680e03a148jpeg.jpg" alt="">Three years ago, a relative was killed in an American drone attack in another village. His father and brother reached there to pay their last homage. On the way back home, their car was blown up by Taliban insurgents.Zahfary lost all hope, and paid $10,000 to a trafficker to get him to Nepal via New Delhi. He says: “Had I not left Afghanistan, I would have probably committed suicide by now, if not killed in an attack. I was mentally disturbed after seeing so many deaths and losing my livelihood.” <figure><img width="1500" height="1187" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922c99c7e80680e03a149jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>But life is not easy in Kathmandu, either. Zahfary’s wife is suffering from a neurological disorder, but he does not have money to pay for her treatment. House rents, school fees, food prices and everything is expensive, and they do not earn enough.The government in Nepal has not granted refugee status to the Afghans, but it does not oust them either. Being undocumented, however, they cannot apply for regular jobs or run their own business.Most Afghan refugees in Kathmandu are from Kandahar, but there are some from Helmand and Kabul as well. In an unfamiliar city, nearly 2,000km from their homeland, Afghan refugees miss their homes, friends and relatives.Mohammad Arif Ahmadi, a 53-year-old jeweller from Kandahar, says: “We do not have homes to go back to. They are gone.” He made gold necklaces, bracelets, anklets and earrings, but his shop was blown up four years ago.Ahmadi wept the day he left his hometown for good, and his eyes welled up as he told us in his rented room in Kathmandu: “Everything was reduced to ashes. I now just have memories. And I am learning to live in a new place, remembering the times when Afghanistan also was at peace.”  <figure><img width="640" height="503" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107161120/636922cd9c7e80680e03a14ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/ramadan-in-exile/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ramadan in exile</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/family-separation-bhutan-style/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Family separation, Bhutan</a> - style, Jamie Piotrowski

Kathmandu's Little Kabul

<figure><img width="3888" height="2592" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110714114/636903159c7e80680e037ca0jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>A classroom full of Bhutanese refugee children in Beldangi. Many of them have been denied resettlement to be with their families already in the US. All photos: JAMIE PIOTROWSKI</figcaption></figure>As a student in Pittsburg in the United States, I began working with refugee populations four years ago. A wide-eyed sociology graduate I was aspiring to change the world, though I did not know exactly how.My first job as Resettlement Caseworker changed the trajectory of my life. The first family I was helping were three men from Bhutan, a father and two sons who had arrived in Pittsburgh but needed help to adjust and find work.Now, as a graduate student I came to Nepal to learn more about the people from Bhutan who were my neighbours and friends back in the United States. They were among the 75,000 <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/no-one-to-care-for-doctor-who-cared-for-everyone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepali-speaking Lhotsampa people</a> forced out by Bhutan’s royal regime and with Indian help sent to Nepal. They were housed in refugee camps for the next 20 years until they started being <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/resettlement-of-Bhutan-refugees-in-United-States,3404" target="_blank" rel="noopener">repatriated to the US</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Bhutanese-refugees-in-united-kingdom-find-stability,1585" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the UK</a>, Canada, Norway, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15045#.W2gmdmaB1TY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Netherlands</a>, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17868#.Wk3SKlWWbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New Zealand</a> and Australia.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/camps-for-Bhutanese-refugees-are-emptying-but-some-want-to-return-home,2748" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Over 8,000 refugees still remain in Nepal</a>, mostly in the camps. But <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/02/01/trump-affects-bhutanese-refugees/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">restrictive immigration policies</a> in some of these countries have brought resettlement to a halt for the Bhutanese, some of whom have been living in the camp for nearly three decades. The result: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19646" target="_blank" rel="noopener">families have been separated</a>, much in the same way that children were taken away from illegal migrants in the United States. <figure><img width="640" height="445" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110714114/636903199c7e80680e037ca1jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Tikaram Rasaily is the elected camp secretary at Beldangi, one of the last remaining refugee centres. He was forced to leave his home in Bhutan when he was five years old, and has very few memories of his home but says: “I feel Bhutan in my heart.” And he wants to return one day.Rasaily’s family is now resettled to the United States. His mother and brother live in Atlanta and his sister in Akron, Ohio. Since going back to Bhutan is likely impossible, he would like to be reunited with his family. But he remains in the camp with his wife and child because his application for family reunification was <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/state-of-statelessness-for-refugees-in-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied by the United States Department of Human Services and UNHCR</a>.“I was never told why, I have human rights, but no one is allowing me to express them,” he says. <figure><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110714114/6369031c9c7e80680e037ca2jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As camp secretary, Rasaily is worried about the funding cuts that will affect fellow-refugees who remain. The UN stipend for refugees is now only Rs650 per person every month in lieu of food rations.The World Food Program (WFP) supplies of oil, sugar, salt and other rations have also been slashed, only rice is distributed. Additionally, education funding for 951 students is being cut and students beginning Grade 5 must get enrolled in Nepali government schools.There are only three options for refugees according to UNHCR guidelines: assimilation in Nepal,  repatriation to Bhutan, or third-country resettlement. Unfortunately, for many of the remaining refugees, none of these options are viable. Nepal has not accepted the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, nor established a national legal framework concerning refugees and asylum-seekers, and Bhutan refuses to take its people back.Applications for resettlement to a third country have been closed since December 2016. Only those approved for family reunification may travel, though many are still waiting for their departure dates. The only other remaining camp in Sanischare may be closed soon.Meanwhile, Bhutanese outside the camps <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4842#.W2gm-GaB1TY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">face different challenges. Tek Nath Rizal</a>, 71, the leader of the Bhutanese in forced exile used to be a member of the Royal Advisory Council in Thimphu. He fled to Nepal after being accused of a conspiracy against the King, but Nepal’s royal government kidnapped him from his home in Kathmandu and deported him back to Bhutan in 1989. He was <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17869" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jailed and tortured</a> for 10 years and named a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. <figure><img width="640" height="790" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110714114/636903209c7e80680e037ca3jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="612" height="753" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110714114/636903239c7e80680e037ca4jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rizal now lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, he is not recognised as a refugee by the Nepal government. He has been adamantly opposed to third country resettlement, and wants all Lhotsampa to be allowed to return to Bhutan. He worries that the international community has abandoned the refugees, especially the case of unregistered refugees, family separations, and justice. ”Those who violated our human rights are still in power in Thimphu today, all I want is to bring democracy to Bhutan before I die,” he told us.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/no-one-to-care-for-doctor-who-cared-for-everyone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bhampa Rai</a> was a royal physician in Bhutan, and did not have to leave his country. But seeing the plight of his compatriots in refugee camps in Nepal, he thought they needed his care more than the royal family. He lived with his wife taking care of sick refugees for nearly three decades. Rai has relatives resettled in Texas, but refuses to go.“I will either return to Bhutan or die here as a refugee,” he says. The UN has tried to convince the couple to return to Bhutan, but Thimphu has repeatedly rejected it.There are many <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15760#.W2gmBWaB1TY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bhutanese I met in the United States</a> and in Nepal who remain positive despite what they have been through for so long. They are still hopeful about justice being served some day, but it may have to be a long wait.

Family separation, Bhutan-style

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121140/6368ef229c7e80680e035962jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="997"/><figcaption>Dr Bhampa Rai with his wife Urmila Rai on Thursday. Photo: Gopal Gartaula</figcaption></figure>In the early 1990s, Bhutan's royal regime <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/On-the-way-up/Nepal-lhotshampa-rohingya,1046" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forced out nearly 75,000 of its Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa people</a>, and with the help of the Indian authorities dumped them in Nepal’s Jhapa district.The refugees were housed in seven camps in Jhapa and Morang districts and spent the next two decades there until they were <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/live-together-work-together/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">repatriated to third countries</a> after Bhutan refused to take them back.Bhutan evicted one-sixth of its population, and this is regarded as the largest expulsion in recent history of a people by any country in terms of the size of the original population.Bhampa Rai's family formed part of that massive refugee population. However, unlike other refugees, he was not hounded out of Bhutan. He joined the exodus because he could not bear the pain inflicted upon his people by the Bhutanese government.Rai was the royal family physician in Thimphu, and the Bhutan government asked him not to leave. But he refused to stay back, saying he was needed more by the refugees in the camps than by the royal family.After spending a few months in West Bengal, Bhutanese refugees were chased away by India as well. They first lived in makeshift camps along the Mechi River where they battled with hunger, wildlife attacks and disease outbreaks. Rai did all he could to save ailing refugees, providing free treatment and medicines for them.Later, when they were shifted to the seven camps supported by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Rai set up a clinic in Damak and continued to provide free health care not just for Bhutanese refugees but also for poor Nepalis. He turned down all lucrative job offers, dedicating his life to the people his country had made stateless.Most of the refugees for whom Rai sacrificed his life have now been <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/resettled-former-Bhutanese-refugee-hold-on-to-their-roots,3043" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resettled down in the United States</a>, Europe and Australia. Some 6,000 older refugees remain, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/camps-for-Bhutanese-refugees-are-emptying-but-some-want-to-return-home,2748" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hoping some day to be allowed back to their homeland</a>. The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Bhutanese-refugees-resettlement-program-ending-in-2018,4121" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNHCR is closing down its last remaining camp</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107121140/6368ef259c7e80680e035963jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1100"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>But Rai, now 68, is penniless and battling cancer. His wife Urmila Rai's kidneys have failed, and she needs dialysis twice a week. They are destitute and abandoned.In 2004, Rai told this reporter he would not opt for third-country resettlement, and he has remained true to his word. His dying wish is to be able to return to Bhutan, but Thimphu has turned down repeated requests from the UN.On Tuesday, members of civil society held a function in Kathmandu to raise money for the treatment of the Rai couple. He sent a message to the meeting that he was more concerned about repatriation of the remaining refugees rather than his own life.Prakash Angdembe, a filmmaker, says the central character of his award-winning movie Desh Khojdai Jada (In Search of a Nation) was inspired by the life of Bhampa Rai."I have never met a more self-less and iron-willed person than him,” Angdembe said. “It is heart-breaking to see such a great soul in misery."Rai never asked for anything for himself, but sent a letter to the Nepal government, requesting for free dialysis for his wife — a facility that poor Nepalis can get. However, she is not Nepali, and is not entitled to free treatment.Prime Minister K P Oli is from the same town in Jhapa where the Rais served their compatriots and Nepalis for nearly three decades.Says journalist Devendra Bhattarai who is also from Jhapa: "PM Oli knows who Bhampa Rai is and what he has done, I wonder why he is not coming forward to help the couple.”Ironically, Prime Minister Oli has himself had a kidney transplant and needs constant medical attention.Donors who want to contribute to the Rai couple can contact editors@nepalitimes.comRead also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Bhutanese-refugees-resettlement-program-ending-in-2018,4121" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The end of the road for Bhutan's refugee</a>s, Jenna Kunze<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/On-the-way-up/Nepal-lhotshampa-rohingya,1046" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lhotshampa, Rohingya</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/camps-for-Bhutanese-refugees-are-emptying-but-some-want-to-return-home,2748" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The 100,000th refugee</a>, Gopal Gartaula

No one to care for doctor who cared for everyone

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6d29c7e80680e0314a8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="720"/><figcaption>Nepali speaking Bhutanese working at sportswear factory Under Armour in Maryland take a break.</figcaption></figure>After two decades of living in bamboo sheds in camps in eastern Nepal, refugees from Bhutan resettled in the United States have found that adjustment to life in a new country is easier if they can<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/resettlement-of-Bhutan-refugees-in-United-States,3404" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> live and work among their own people</a>.After being evicted from Bhutan in the early 1990s, being stateless in refugee camps in Jhapa and Morang for so long, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/camps-for-Bhutanese-refugees-are-emptying-but-some-want-to-return-home,2748" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than 100,000 Bhutanese have been resettled in seven countries around the world</a>, with the United States taking most of them.After adjusting to culture shock, and overcoming the language barrier, most of them here have found jobs in large American companies so that they can <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/resettled-former-Bhutanese-refugee-hold-on-to-their-roots,3043" target="_blank" rel="noopener">live, commute and work together</a>.Narayan Gautam is among 200 Bhutanese who work at the large clothing chain Nordstrom in  Harrisburg of Pennsylvania. Gautam and other Bhutanese who worked for Apple, DB Schenker, and Aerotech have all switched en masse to Nordstrom, which has policy to make it easier for immigrants to fit in.Unlike Nepalis in the US who tend to work individually, the Bhutanese prefer to go where there are other compatriots. Pancha Bahadur Gurung, for instance works in a coat factory called Southwick in Haverhill of Massachusetts which employs 25 other Bhutanese. “Four years ago there were 60 Bhutanese here, but they have moved elsewhere now,” he explains.Thousands of Bhutanese work at Fedex distribution hubs in Texas, in dairy farms in Rochester of  New York, and in chocolate factories in Vermont.In Ohio state, where many Bhutanese refugees from Nepal have settled, the former refugees have flocked to the same company for employment. For example, Nepali is almost the lingua franca in an Amazon processing centre in Texas where more than 1,500 Bhutanese work.Dalbahadur Basnet and five of his family members all work there, and he says proudly: "We now have a reputation for being among the top nationalities who perform well.”Nepali-speaking Bhutanese can be found from beginner level to medium to managerial positions in two Amazon centres in Ohio, too. Dhanpati Acharya is a programmer at Amazon, and says: “People like to work at Amazon because of good pay, ease of finding and leaving jobs, flexible timing, and other facilities."Nepali-speaking Bhutanese have now fanned out across North America, working in stores like SK Foods, bag manufacturer Thirty One, medical equipment distributor Cardinal Health, Axium Plastics, KDC Cosmetics, Zulily readymade clothes, and poultry farms in Kentucky.Bhim Koirala lives in Louisville Kentucky and says his friends have adjusted well for work at Amazon, Yangfeng motor parts, General Electric and Ford Motors.Jobs are opening up for migrants and refugees from Syria, Sudan, Chad and Bhutan because so many employers here have found that white Americans are failing drug tests because of opioid addiction. Like migrants from Vietnam and Laos before them, the Bhutanese have found a niche working together in large companies where they can be among their own kind.Koirala is the editor of 'Aksharika', a Nepali-language newsletter in the United States.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107101156/6368d6d59c7e80680e0314a9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="596" height="915"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>

Live together, work together

In the black and white photograph, General Wangdu smiles broadly in front of the dusty cactus garden in Kathmandu’s Annapurna Hotel. With an ill-fitting jacket and shaggy hair he looks benign enough, but this was the last leader of the Tibetan freedom fighters who led the resistance against the Chinese from their remote mountain hideouts in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/comings-and-goings-in-mustang">Mustang</a>. Five months later, Wangdu was dead. Snapped in March 1974, I had only recently arrived in Nepal. How did I meet this legendary fighter? Possibly with his devoted camp follower, Lynne Klapecki, and probably in the Om Restaurant near Freak Street which was the preferred <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/hippie-trail-nostalgia-in-kathmandu">hippie hang-out</a>. Om Lobsang and his brother Yeshe were <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/earthquake-brings-back-memories-of-camps-for-tibetan-refugees">refugees from East Tibet </a>whose cafe offered a friendly welcome and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/momo-loco"> the best momos</a> - they became my in-laws after I married their eldest brother Tenzin, but that was a decade later.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025052403054_4573b34282b0f5395c007243d6bef12c7ba76bfd520419e994cdcea048d795a1" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1583" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption> </figure>  Wangdu’s English was enthusiastically rudimentary, but even riding around town with him on the back of an aging <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/kathmandu-s-new-motorbike-museum">motorbike</a>, he was a commanding presence. Always flanked by armed outriders, impressive scars marked his forearms and a pistol hung from the cord around his neck. A charismatic guerrilla leader, Wangdu was celebrated by his followers for his tough commitment and respected for his measured pragmatism. He seemed so young to have shouldered such a responsibility of command, leading hundreds of hardened <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/50-years-after-the%20raid-into-Tibet,1012#google_vignette">Khampa combatants </a>through what had been a particularly <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya">brutal winter in Mustang</a>, the last bastion to hold out against the Chinese invasion of their Tibetan homeland.&nbsp; The freedom fighters of Tibet, known as the Chushi-Gangdruk, had emerged to resist the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/territorialism">Chinese takeover</a> of Tibet during the 1950s. Estimated to be 80,000-strong at the time of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-or-who-after-the-dalai-lama">the Dalai Lama</a>’s final escape to India in 1959, the sheer number of Chinese deployed into Tibet eventually forced the Chushi-Gangdruk to retreat to Mustang, From this high Himalayan stronghold, they continued cross-border raids on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) throughout the 1960s.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="2025052403054_8a4a935ba25ae79dc3a63bb5c14626927020e5ec098093c45ccb9a5982e009fd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="676" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Guerrillas known as the Chushi-Gangdruk emerged to resist the Chinese annexation of Tibet during the 1950s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>  Their Kathmandu base was a small discreet lodge in a back lane near Rani Pokhari. Sipping sweet tea from a blue mug with a chipped lid, I sat bemused in a corner of the Mustang Hotel room whilst Wangdu and his cohorts received a battered brown suitcase from their CIA connection, a tousle-haired American in a leather jacket. Heaved onto the dingy bedspread that covered the thin mattress, it was clicked open to reveal piles of neatly stacked dollar bills.&nbsp; I cannot think why Wangdu allowed me to witness this handover but I was clearly no threat, a newly arrived world traveller with no understanding of the stakes nor any Nepali or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/tibetan-music-in-nepals-sacred-valley">Tibetan language</a>. Despite armed guards in the corridor,Wangdu radiated confidence and bravado, and there was a practiced familiarity to the tense transaction. This deadly dance for many years had been funded by the Americans, tolerated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-kingdom-within-a-republic">Mustang’s residents</a>, and permitted by King Mahendra and the Nepali authorities who it suited to turn a blind eye.&nbsp; But Mahendra died in 1972, and times were changing. Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy thawed the cold war and signalled a fresh entente with China. Nepal’s yet-to-be-crowned <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">King Birendra </a>was under pressure to curb the irritating incursions against the PLA launched from the Nepali territory of Mustang. Keen to appease his northern neighbour, on several occasions the King summoned Wangdu for peace talks but, despite increasingly overwhelming odds, Wangdu refused to surrender.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="2025052403054_a8efd5cfb92cd997bd7cb74296a936fef46e2f7428f9cd642b03f1ac4ea11ecb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1055" height="885" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>General Wangdu flanked by two Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang in the 1970s. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025052403054_75969125a745847a2ef82b6fe8b9106c0b21a116d85b8efdf5d2ee89a347bb31" data-rendition-name="original" width="1044" height="792" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>King Birendra with General Wangdu (right in dark glasses) taken in 1974 possibly in Mustang after one of their few attempts at negotiation. Photo courtesy: RAJRNDRA KUNWAR</figcaption> </figure>  While I naively rode pillion around Kathmandu in the spring sunshine, Wangdu was in the midst of what turned out to be his final round of negotiations with the Nepal government. Refusing to cease hostilities with the Chinese, Wangdu must have suspected the cost of his decision, making his cheerful smile in the photograph all the more poignant and brave. It was only much later that I appreciated the significance of the moment. Wangdu had been sent to replace the first resistance leader in Mustang, Baba Gen Yeshe, a much derided corrupt character who stole money meant for his troops and exploited fleeing refugees by seizing their treasures. Baba Gen Yeshe never forgave Wangdu,and sought revenge in May 1974 by betraying him and his commanders to the Nepal authorities. Renewed Chinese incursions from the north, active PLA collusion with the Nepali forces under the new King, and treachery from within the Chushi-Gangdrukranks combined to seal their fate.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="2025052403054_e0987a7c90d76431b0d7d5e6115ebfe3dbda7ab939e5941e079c18d722e884c0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="769" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>British television journalists George Patterson and Adrian Cowell embedded themselves with Khampa guerrillas and accompanied them from Tsum Valley on a cross border raid on a Chinese Army convoy in 1964. Photo: ESSAYS ON NEPAL / SAM COWAN</figcaption> </figure>  Mikel Dunham, renowned author of Buddha’s Warriors, writes: ‘It is possible that Wangdu was waiting for some cue from the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. It is equally possible – during that last, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-human-cost-of-nepal-s-yarsa-gold-rush?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR31-Cqw8oyIwMPzf_35e4Skr0ululJvLf3_vDkzHn-AYG2h8uPw2rqqErg_aem_tGVn5coY1-jA7fze_xqhew">desolate winter </a>– that he made the decision to go out in glory rather than admit defeat. Over the last fifteen years, Wangdu had experienced Tibet’s organized resistance being squeezed and shoved around by every conceivable outside force.&nbsp; First they had been pushed out of their own country by the PLA; then they had been refused sanction while on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/borderlines/nepal-india-trans-boundary-bonds?fbclid=IwAR0PpJ5zUEbwdug3g_U3ar6FUugngRY0S8Tl2v_7wqzrsHmXWcXsKjvL4t4">Indian soil</a>; then they were abandoned by the Americans because, apparently, Nixon wanted to make friends with Wangdu’s mortal enemies, the communists; then they had been betrayed by the vampiric Baba Gen Yeshe – a Tibetan and, even worse, a fellow Khampa; and now, finally Wangdu’s army was being evicted by the Nepalis. One thing was certain: Wangdu was a warrior. To imagine Wangdu simply giving up and settling down in the pacific squalor of a <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/elderly-left-in-bhutan-refugee-camp">refugee camp </a>was unthinkable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49.jpg" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025052403054_8fc1ffef4ae751628b90ae781b66e11e51e4fdde2787207c9042efbee345ce49" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="746" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>The much derided Baba Gen Yeshe, the first Tibetan resistance leader in Mustang, who betrayed Wangdu for personal gain. Photo courtesy: MIKEL DUNHAM</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025052403054_b1d833cdb00d3ac4416b844d8730475cd88c238caaaf8da69889a584eea229a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="500" height="656" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> <figcaption>Aditya SJB Rana of the Royal Nepal Army whose team ambushed Wangdu and his cohorts at the top of Tinker Pass in Darchula, West Nepal. Photo courtesy: GAUTAM SJB RANA</figcaption> </figure>  By August 1974 the game was up. Wangdu and six of his exhausted party were killed on their horses by <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=7270">the Royal Nepal Army</a> on the brink of escape. The officer in charge, Aditya SJB Rana, cleverly predicted their route into India after they failed to silence a police radio in Yari. A carefully laid ambush trapped them near the summit of the Tinker Pass in Darchula,at 5,000 meters the highest military operation of its time. Wangdu’s body was helicoptered to Kathmandu, and a big show made of the royal Nepal victory.&nbsp; The Tibetan armed insurgency against China had reached its end.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250524030520_3ff9c6fc85a65bc9a2c3afe9736d9f5f9413de752e790a5d9dca0981ea94f9b4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="The last days of the Khampa NT"> </figure>

The Last Days of the Khampa

Starting 17 September Turkish Airlines will fly daily to Seville, one of Spain’s major tourist draws. This is Turkish’s sixth destination in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Bilbao. Seville is in the Andalusia region on Spain’s south coast with a rich Moor history. There are approximately 30,000 Nepalis living in Spain.&nbsp;

Turkish to Seville

The newly-formed Himalayan Art Council is set to launch Nepal’s National Art Protection Platform that seeks to preserve <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-history-of-heritage">Nepal’s unique cultural heritage </a>using<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificial-censorship"> AI-powered tools</a>. The Council seeks to safeguard <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places">Nepali art works</a> from neglect, theft and counterfeiting as well as preserve existing artwork and celebrate living masters by giving them a cultural space to continue the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/sacred-survival">sacred art traditions</a>. "We are introducing a new digital platform designed to preserve, verify and elevate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-new-generation-of-alternative-artists">Nepal’s art for generations to come,</a>” says a statement from the Council, adding that the digital platform will use AI told for authentication and blockchain to keep track of works of art. Artists can now be protected by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai?fbclid=IwAR1uwmTVq4gUB70ljfRezjzukD9ArWXPuMnUikopeQ8PoiZMjicToPSwhKE&amp;=1">AI tools</a> that detect forgeries, identify their work even when unsigned, and ensure they receive proper recognition and credit. The archives will be searchable with translated inscription and interactive guides. Says curator Meena Lama: “AI and blockchains are tools that give us the power to detect fakes and identify unsigned paintings and track every piece. With these tools we can restore trust, secure authorship and give artists the dignity they deserve.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250514170544_2ab58f6313c0458f75114a692b0016bd9efb3b59d5f8f07f0da72e1e37b82f53" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum."> <figcaption>Artwork at the Traditional Art Exhibition at Patan Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  The Council is also holding an exhibition of Nepali cultural masterpieces with 50 historical <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Buzz-the-art,671">thangka and paubha </a>by past masters and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/between-the-sacred-and-everyday">contemporary works by current artists</a>. This curated collection is a living tribute to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">Himalayan culture</a> with economic depictions of deities, mandala and sacred narratives. The exhibition at <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/a-portal-into-patan-s-past-and-present">Patan Museum</a> also provides an opportunity to meet painters and custodians of art and culture. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/golden-deities">Golden deities</a>, Sewa Bhattarai ‘The exhibition is only the first step in a long journey to ensure that Nepali art is no just seen but fully understood, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987">protected and remembered</a>,’ the Council says. Artist Kailash K Shrestha of Artudio has spent decades promoting thankha and paubha traditions because of their beauty and devotional meaning. But he also says artists are underpaid, exploited and ignored. He adds, “AI and blockchain are not just buzzwords, they are powerful tools that can protect Nepal’s artists from fraud, verify authenticity and build a permanent record of provenance.” Traditional Art Exhibition Till 17 May Patan Museum

Digital protection for Nepal’s art

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/prabalgurung/" target="_blank">Prabal Gurung</a> left Nepal for New York in 1999 to escape years of bullying, sexism and homophobia, and to pursue his dream of becoming a fashion designer. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqN0VaoAI5w" target="_blank">realised his dream</a>, but did not escape discrimination and racism in the new world. Propelled by passion for fashion, Gurung overcame everything America threw at him. He has attained <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/prabal-gurung-recalls-his-first-met-gala-when-zoe-saldana-was-at-his-side?srsltid=AfmBOooy-H0oGgxMit864FnW_Pmw8mUnV8rYrh-co-f6OyYK6m2ip5hP" target="_blank">fame and recognition</a> for his haute couture dress designs while remaining true to his Nepali roots, and is even more resolute in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSmNauyzACk" target="_blank">fighting prejudice</a> in all its forms. Prabal Gurung’s newly-released memoir <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Walk-Like-Girl-Memoir/dp/B0DG11HCDQ?fbclid=IwY2xjawKZfpxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuZcIJO2OXyXcRm1oq1iG6wzeoF7VJFrQ7GXOFI0YxuZZ4id_CNvSZSZZIna_aem_pG_mOKG73RTnYvN8JaC4fA">Walk Like a Girl</a> is a saga of harrowing abuse in boarding schools in Nepal and India, only finding himself facing a different kind of bullying in the US. He prevails over it all to be where he is today: an award-winning American fashion designer with his own label. Walk Like a Girl was launched last week in New York at a time when everything Gurung fought for — tolerance, inclusion and diversity — are in retreat in his adopted country because of a president who has espoused a culture of bullying. The book is a searing, raw exposé of how cruel and abusive people can be even at a young age in school. On the other hand, it also shows that there are generous, compassionate and open-minded souls out there. In his book, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4le_uWX7YE">Prabal Gurung</a> calls out those who tormented and tried to hold him back (some of their names have been altered). The moral of his story is: resist, never stop believing in yourself, do not let others define you, never lose sight of your dream, and help those who have been kept out. “Walk like a girl” was a slur used by bullies back in school in Nepal and India for Gurung’s effeminate ways. He fought back then, and he is still resisting by turning those words into something to be proud of.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170544_4ffc9c3f565dd2cfa754d10b224816897b82bb31ebaee91b6d79d469fc96f14e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250519170544_4ffc9c3f565dd2cfa754d10b224816897b82bb31ebaee91b6d79d469fc96f14e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1253" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung NT"> <figcaption>Prabal Gurung at home in Kathmandu in the 1990s.</figcaption> </figure>  “Living through it all was one thing, but writing about it is one of the hardest things I have done in my life,” admitted Gurung during the launch. “I broke down constantly during the six-year writing process.” He continues: “I did not want this to be a victim’s book. I did not want to burden my readers with my emotions. I wanted my struggle to be an inspiration for others facing what I faced. I am grateful to those who bullied me in school, they made me a stronger person ready to face the world.” Indeed, this book is a departure from his earlier one titled simply, Prabal Gurung (Abrams, 2019), which was a lush pictorial autobiography of his career in fashion. Walk Like a Girl is not a typical fashion book, it is an intimate tale of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16997">Gurung’s travails and triumphs</a>, and how he willed himself to succeed. Prabal pays a lavish tribute to his mother Durga Rana. We find out she is a descendant of the first wife of the eldest son of Jang Bahadur Rana who was banished to Palpa in the late 19th century. Prabal’s father served in the Singapore Police and that is where he was born before the family returned to Nepal when he was four. Gurung relates with brutal honesty about the violence his mother endured from his father. Durga raises three children as a single mother in Nepal, and Prabal credits her for his fierce determination to resist patriarchy and injustice, which in time manifests itself in his hyper-feminine and subversive dress designs. Writing the book has been a cathartic experience for Gurung, who says he is now relieved of the burdens of his past. It no longer haunts him, and he does not have to prove anything to anyone anymore. Walk Like a Girl has life lessons not just for the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DJmOcSgxdWz/" target="_blank">fashion industry</a>, but for every other profession. How can my job serve a greater cause? Gurung tells us his work is <a href="https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/why-designer-prabal-gurung-doesnt-want-just-stick-fashion" target="_blank">bigger than just making clothes</a>, it is about making the world a better place because it could do with a lot of improvement.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170544_d75296ad8bfdc00d88935f40d23543c6fea3d4d6a10e61a99d6cfc6127f2ee5b.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250519170544_d75296ad8bfdc00d88935f40d23543c6fea3d4d6a10e61a99d6cfc6127f2ee5b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1516" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung"> </figure>  This story of chasing the American dream may sound familiar to many immigrants: knocking on doors for jobs, rejections, trying to survive from day to day on expensive rent, and dealing with subtle racism in white America. Gurung finds racism is rife, and he is often mockingly called ‘gaysian’. He writes: ‘There was a strong hypocrisy — this idea of independence felt like a marketting ruse … and for all the talk of feminism in America, these high society women were trapped by the patriarchy just like in Nepal and India.’ After a trek to the Khumbu region in 2013, Gurung is inspired to use the colours, palette and textures of Nepal for his collection exhibited on Manhattan’s 8th Avenue. A major buyer tells him bluntly: “Stick to making pretty dresses … if I need to see a collection like this, I could buy a copy of National Geographic.” The New York Times was equally dismissive: ‘The designer tries to draw connections between blistered techo-fabric used to construct it and the topography of his homeland, Nepal. But, at the moment, he has lost his map.’ One potential investor tells Gurung he cannot design for Americana because “you do not look American”. Gurung wants to use expletives, but restrains himself. After a fundraiser in New York for the Nepal earthquake in 2015, some belittled his effort, saying: “Here comes the saviour."&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/prabal-gurung-by-prabal-gurung">Prabal Gurung by Prabal Gurung</a>, Kunda Dixit The Gurkha DNA must be dominant in Prabal Gurung’s genes because he does not take such mistreatment lying down. When asked by a fashion publicist why he was designing clothes for fat people, he snaps back: “Because of people like you.” He joins the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, launches the Shikshya Foundation charity in Nepal, and has powerful allies among celebrities who wear clothes he designed: Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Sara Jessica Parker, Kamala Harris, Deepika Padukone … it is a long list.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519150556_48a5f4211991a23fa85b64bbd5377575ca7081d97309d7542035591dda5180fe.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250519150556_48a5f4211991a23fa85b64bbd5377575ca7081d97309d7542035591dda5180fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1114" height="1534" loading="lazy" alt="Being Prabal Gurung by design"> <figcaption>Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wearing Atelier Prabal Gurung’s design for Met Gala 2025 in which the theme was ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. </figcaption> </figure>  “I don’t dress women to look beautiful, they already are,” Gurung says. “I try to bring out their innate strength and grace.” <a href="https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17908766880140171/" target="_blank">Admirers</a> tell Gurung he makes it all look so easy, but he used to put up a strong facade to not show his own vulnerabilities in public. “I was closed because of my childhood experiences,” he says. “I was always on guard to defend myself because I never knew where the next punch would come from.” But in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPVepzPA210" target="_blank">Walk Like a Girl,</a> Gurung comes to terms with his vulnerability, and bares his soul. It has not been easy, it took sustained will power and support from his mother, sister Kumudini and a circle of close friends. “I made unbelonging my power,” he says. “Nepal is where I still have my heart and soul. Nepal grounds you. It is where people go to find themselves. But I escaped.” Recently appointed vice-chair of the <a href="https://cfda.com/about-cfda" target="_blank">Council of American Fashion Designers</a>, Gurung says: “I can’t believe I am here, it feels like it is happening to someone else. Writing this book, the healing has finally begun.” <h2>‘Everything is better in color’</h2> The Met Gala was two weeks later, and my table was an example of everything I’d been fighting for all these years as my guests represented everything I believed in: dynamic, powerful, influential women who were unapologetically original and unabashedly graceful. I was grateful to Anna for inviting me to host and dress a table that reflected my ethos—and for her guidance in doing so. I was also aware of the privilege as one of the first-­ever Asian fashion designers—not just from Nepal, but from the entire continent— to get the opportunity to do so. That fact was not lost on me. I reached out beyond the expected Hollywood celebrities and well-­known socialites to curate a table of exceptional women who inspired me. I invited Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt for their first-­ever Met Galas, as well as Michelle Yeoh, Mindy Kaling, Camila Cabello, Ashley Park, Denée Benton, KiKi Layne, Quannah Chasinghorse, and Grace Elizabeth. Together we checked many boxes: Asian, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous, each woman undeniably chic and powerful, a dazzling array of skin tones and experiences that proved my decades‑in‑the-­making hypothesis: everything is better in color. Excerpt from Walk Like a Girl Viking © 2025 by Prabal Gurung  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170520_6b91d560e9f072c37d16876901058c073a51ffa05e7ad1b9461d19e1c9c28215.jpg" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250519170520_6b91d560e9f072c37d16876901058c073a51ffa05e7ad1b9461d19e1c9c28215" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung book details NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250519170520_345240c21be400e2ce2ec629b52bd82bb53890e5bd86fe95b48340d84b5f1748.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250519170520_345240c21be400e2ce2ec629b52bd82bb53890e5bd86fe95b48340d84b5f1748" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Prabal Gurung book details NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;