Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Cambodia to shut Vietnamese refugee centre

Hundreds of Montagnards have fled to Cambodia since 2001
14 December 2010
BBC News

Cambodia says it will shut a centre for Vietnamese refugees on 1 January and send those remaining back to Vietnam, where they allegedly face repression.

The UN refugee agency has pleaded for more time to resettle the 62 refugees.

They are the last group of asylum-seekers known as Montagnards - an ethnic minority that largely sided with US forces during the Vietnam war.


Cambodia has refused to allow them to settle, saying they must choose to go to a third country or back to Vietnam.

Hundreds of Montagnards have fled to Cambodia since 2001, after Vietnam's communist government cracked down on protests against land confiscation and religious persecution.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has already has granted the Montagnards refugee status.

"We have asked the Cambodian government to give us more time to find a long-term solution for these 62 individuals who are at that site, and we hope that the Cambodian government will give us a favourable reply," Kitty McKinsey of UNHCR told the BBC Vietnamese service.

"They haven't sent them back yet, so let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Cambodia says it wants to close the shelter in Phnom Penh to deter any further arrivals from Vietnam.

"If we don't tell them to close the site, the work of the UNHCR will be prolonged endlessly," Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

God! they are Khmer from the old kingdome!

What's the fuck with you ah Kwack????

Anonymous said...

You're right, those people are not yuons and we must help them.

Anonymous said...

Time is comming,
CPP pleases Yuons,
CPP pleases Chineses,
in the near future it could not please both of them anymore
when it pleases one and offends another..

Anonymous said...

Time for us, Khmer people around the world to protect our Khmer brother & sisters. This Khmer people were born on the wrong place and wrong time. Of course they don't speak our language, because they did not have a chance to learn Khmer in Vietnam.

Anonymous said...

2:25am! THEY MAY SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE OR SOMETHING CLOSE TO IT! I BET THEY NOT SPEAK THE FUCKING pHd!!!!!