COPENHAGEN, Sept 27 (AFP) - Denmark
has granted an aid package of 6.2 million kronor (835,000 euros, 815,000
dollars) in emergency assistance for refugees in Nepal and Tanzania, the
foreign ministry said Friday.
"There are large numbers of refugees
in many poor developing countries who represent a burden that is too much
for them to manage," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said
in a statement, announcing the aid.
Two million kronor would go towards emergency assistance for refugees in Nepal, where more than 100,000 refugees of Nepalese descent have sheltered since they left Bhutan in 1990 alleging an anti-Hindu intimidation campaign.
The remaining 4.2 million kronor is to be used to help people displaced in Burundi's civil war, who have fled fighting between the army and rebels from the National Liberation Front to seek refuge in neighbouring Tanzania.
"It is important to support these countries so that they themselves do not collapse and start to produce new refugees" the Danish minister said.
The conservative Danish government set aside 100 million kronor in its 2003 budget to devote to refugee aid.
sa/jah/ds AFP 271742 GMT 09 02
Copyright (c) 2002 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 09/27/2002 17:07:13