Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Phnom Penh (Fides Service) - Increasing numbers of mountain peoples from central Vietnam are arriving in Cambodia in search of help and many ask local officials of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to help them retrieve their confiscated land.
In the past four months, 441 Montagnards who came spontaneously to the UNHCR office in the border area of Cambodia were registered and transferred to Phnom Penh to start procedures to determine the status of refugee. The Cambodian government has asked for the refugees to be settled as soon as possible in another country, on the grounds that local integration is not practicable.
Some Montagnards ask for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution, others request help from the UNHCR to regain confiscated land and when they hear that the UNHCR cannot operate in this field they want to return to Vietnam.
The main concerns of refugees emerging in conversations with UNHCR officials include concern for family members still in Vietnam, problems with regard settling in another country.
UNHCR has started constructive dialogue with Vietnamese authorities to find an acceptable humanitarian solution for asylum seekers anxious to return to their own country. At the moment UNHCR in Cambodia is assisting 553 Montagnards from Vietnam. In 2004 it helped to resettle 74: 67 in the United States and 7 in Sweden.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 6/11/2004 Righe: 27 Parole: 291)
