Ensuring access to drinking water, basic healthcare and nutrition: these are the main motivations that have prompted the Office for Humanitarian Aid of the European Commission (ECHO) to allocate an emergency supplement of 6 million Euro for the victims of the conflict in Nepal and for refugees from Bhutan. In particular, 4 million have been earmarked for the Nepalese rural populations victimised by the civil war that is still going on and that has caused over 12,000 deaths since 1996: women, children and the disabled are the main direct beneficiaries of the European aid. Moreover, “to assure the basic food needs of the 105,000 refugees from Bhutan (of whom 3300 “highly vulnerable”) living in seven camps in the south of Nepal”, Brussels has decided to fund with 2 million Euro both the purchase of food rations on the local market (distributed by the UN’s World Food Programme) and the organization of training courses.
