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Australia to take 200 Lao refugees from Thailand
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Australia plans to give refuge to 200 of about 8,000 Lao ethnic Hmong refugees currently in Thailand.
"We'll take about 200 of them at this stage," Mr Downer told reporters in Bangkok when asked how many Hmongs, an ethnic minority who fought alongside America in the Vietnam War, Australia planned to take.
"Whether we'll take them more, that remains to be seen."
Mr Downer, who made a brief stopover in the Thai capital to meet his counterpart, says Australia will start relocating the Hmongs after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had completed the legal process on them.
Australia was one of four Western countries that pledged to repatriate 153 Hmong refugees, due last month to be deported to Laos, where rights groups say they face persecution.
Before suspending their attempt to deport the Hmong from the border town of Nong Khai on Tuesday (local time), police fired tear gas into an immigration detention cell to try to force out men and boys barricaded inside, Amnesty International said.
Bangkok then halted the deportation, saying it had received assurances from the United States, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands that they would take the refugees.
Apart from the 153, a further 8,000 Hmong were living in Thailand, and were being treated at the moment as victims of human trafficking, Thai officials said.
It remained unclear how many of them would be repatriated to third countries and how many more the other three western countries would take.
Human rights groups accused Laos of waging a 30-year campaign of vengeance against Hmong guerrillas still hiding out in the forests. Lao denies the accusations.
-Reuters
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Australia plans to give refuge to 200 of about 8,000 Lao ethnic Hmong refugees currently in Thailand.
"We'll take about 200 of them at this stage," Mr Downer told reporters in Bangkok when asked how many Hmongs, an ethnic minority who fought alongside America in the Vietnam War, Australia planned to take.
"Whether we'll take them more, that remains to be seen."
Mr Downer, who made a brief stopover in the Thai capital to meet his counterpart, says Australia will start relocating the Hmongs after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had completed the legal process on them.
Australia was one of four Western countries that pledged to repatriate 153 Hmong refugees, due last month to be deported to Laos, where rights groups say they face persecution.
Before suspending their attempt to deport the Hmong from the border town of Nong Khai on Tuesday (local time), police fired tear gas into an immigration detention cell to try to force out men and boys barricaded inside, Amnesty International said.
Bangkok then halted the deportation, saying it had received assurances from the United States, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands that they would take the refugees.
Apart from the 153, a further 8,000 Hmong were living in Thailand, and were being treated at the moment as victims of human trafficking, Thai officials said.
It remained unclear how many of them would be repatriated to third countries and how many more the other three western countries would take.
Human rights groups accused Laos of waging a 30-year campaign of vengeance against Hmong guerrillas still hiding out in the forests. Lao denies the accusations.
-Reuters
