Bolivia hosted approximately 530 refugees and asylum seekers at the end of 2003. Bolivia granted refugee status to five people during the year and denied the applications of eighteen others. Approximately 190 Bolivians were refugees or asylum seekers abroad.

New Developments

President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada resigned in October after huge and increasingly violent protests in which dozens of people died. The protests began in September in opposition to a plan to export natural gas to the United States and to U.S.-backed coca eradication policies, but later focused on poor economic conditions and policies.

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