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BBC Verify understands that some people in the group seen in the viral video are US citizens of Nepalese and Bhutanese heritage.

The spectators lining the course cheered her, some waving the orange-and-yellow Bhutanese flag with the dragon in the center, the one Lhamo carried in the opening ceremony two weeks ago.

In 2005, the Bhutanese monarch announced that he was stepping down in 2008, a move that helped clear the way for the country’s transformation to a democracy.

As a truck rolls out of the Bhutanese bottling plant, operated by Veen Waters India, the 40-some line workers take a tea break along a short row of employee housing.

About 50,000 Bhutanese are employed in tourism which earned about $84 million a year in the three years before the pandemic in foreign exchange.