37
VIV
HRK 243/1
UNITED KINGDOM
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51
28 APR 1978
37-39
SSION
RUE DE VERMONT
1202 GENBYA
TELEPHONE.34 38 00
20124
HotC licee
DESK OFFICER INDEX
PA
REGISTRY Action Taxen
33 23 85
UN 618/1
OR
18 April 1978
Then Dai
Dhiocell 20
Copied to ride Morgan.
do
Mr P Hartling
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Centre William Rappard
GENEVA
My dear this? Com
mission
Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter of
28
17 April to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary containing your 1978 Programme for refugees from Indo-China. am sure that Dr Owen and his colleagues will study it with care and sympathy, and will wish to do all they can to help.
saw recently à synoptic account of our assistance to refugees from Indo-China so far, which I thought might be of interest to you even though the individual facts in it are probably already familiar to your staff.
The United Kingdom accepted 695 refugees from Indo- China from 1975 up to February 1978. 173 of them were "boat people" (mostly Viet-Namese). The British Government had at one stage fixed a limited quota of 116, but we are in fact accepting, without quota limitation, refugees who have been picked up at sea by vessels registered in the United Kingdom, but who are not accepted by any other country for re-settlement. Since many British ships ply in the South China Sea, and adjacent seas, they do in fact often rescue "boat people", and they go out of their way to do so. At the British Government's request, the General Council of British Shipping has reminded British masters of the British legislation which requires them to rescue anyone in distress at ssa, if it is in their power to do so. These rescue operations are clearly likely to continue, and to lead to more boat people being admitted to the United Kingdom.
There is also a large number of refugees from Indo- China in Hong Kong. Over 10,000 people have left Indo-China since April 1975 and found permanent or temporary homes in
/Hong