Published by: World Tibet Network News Friday, January 16, 1998

January 15, 1998

HONG KONG STANDARD

BEIJING:(AP) Five children and a teenager died in snowstorms in the Himalayan mountains while trying to flee Tibet, a monitoring group reported on Thursday.

Four children, aged 10 and 11, and a 16-year-old monk died in December after their group of 22 Tibetans was stranded and then struggled out in snow more than one metre deep, London-based Tibet Information Network reported.

Some of the survivors, who suffered severe frostbite, where helped by two trekkers from Scotland. The couple carried a child and hired porters to carry a 23-year-old nun to a hospital. The journey required crossing 5,700-metre-high mountain passes.

Another group of 26 Tibetans that reached Nepal reported a two-year-old child with them died after the group walked through the deep snow.

The children were being sent to schools run by the Tibetan government-in-exile in India, and older members of the group were going to India to join Tibetan monasteries.

Tibetans trying to reach India go through Nepal, where many receive United Nations aid.

The number of refugees increases during the winter, apparently because there are fewer guards on the borders then, Tibet Information Network said in a statement about the six deaths.

China sent its army into Tibet in 1950 and formally took it over a year later, claiming it historically was a Chinese province. - AP