The Nepal government has deported six Tibetans who had crossed into the country to seek asylum and handed them over to Chinese police last week.
“When those six Tibetan escapees arrived on Nepal soil (on foot), at a place called Legme, the Nepalese border police arrested them. From there, the Nepali police led them handcuffed to Simikto police station,” said a Nepal police official.
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He said the Nepali police handed over those arrested Tibetan refugees to the Chinese border police on September 5 evening.
“The handcuffed Tibetan refugees were wailing in great distress at their fate, and were pleading with the police with folded hands not to take them back to the Chinese,” the official added.
Simikto is the administrative headquarters of Humla district of Karnali Pradesh in the northwestern corner of Nepal.
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Simikto airport is the main tourist gateway on the Nepalese side to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar, revered pilgrimage sites in Tibet.
The six had crossed the Nepal border from Purang (In Chinese, Burang) county in Ngari (Ari) prefecture. The source said they had ruddy complexions and wore Tibetan clothing.
“When the armed Nepalese police were escorting them, the residents were waved off from approaching them closer,” the official said.
Nepal shares a long border with Tibet and is home to around 20,000 exiles who began arriving in 1959 when a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule forced Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama into exile in Dharamsala in India’s Himalayan foothills.