人民入境事務處

29/F

香港德輔道中

كميسي

國際大厦

樓次 FLOOR

科別 SECTION

TEL: 5-456065

電報掛號 TELEGRAMS:

專用電訊號碼 TELEX:

Special Duties Unit

Ext 119

IMMIGRATION HONG KON/M 133 in HS/GEN/77.

75656

* IN REPLY PLEASE QUOTE THIS REF KEK 263||

Mr P J Williamson

اجد

Hong Kong & General Department, FCO 16 MAR 1979

King Charles Street SW1A 2AH. United Kingdom

1.

INDEX

PA

ль

frais

((677)

IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT,

INTERNATIONAL BUILDING.

141. DES VOEUX ROAD CENTRAL. HONG KONG.

6 March 1979

thi Qugabe 02 14/3

Ah Melone 14/5

ва

17/3

Invite ann

14.3

Vietnamese Refugees

<

Avon Forest

On or about the 12/13 August last year the 'AVON FOREST'

a UK owned

and registered container ship which was en route to Kaohshiung (Taiwan) picked up 40 Vietnamese refugees whose boat had been swamped during a typhoon. The FCO, in telegram 626 of 14 August, requested the Hong Kong Government to land the refugees temporarily in Hong Kong pending resettlement in a 3rd country and gave an undertaking to resettle in the UK any refugees who had not been settled elsewhere within 3 months.

The Hong Kong Government demurred and there was a flurry of telegrams in Mid-August between FCO and Hong Kong, rfi to Geneva, Washington, Peking and Ottawa culminating in FCO's Telao 647 of 18 August to Hong Kong stating that the Home Office would undertake to accept any refugees still in Hong Kong 7 days after their admission. By this time arrangements had been made for the provisional acceptance of the refugees in Canada.

Consultations with the Canada Commission took place last October and the group finally arrived in Hong Kong on 9 October. Although the Canadians had said that they expected to be able to resettle all the refugees within about 4 weeks they were admitted temporarily for 3 months.

You will wish to know that 1st group of 32 left for Canada at the end of October, 2 travelled to the USA on 9 January and the remainder left for Canada on 20 February.

Good.

(

CC

P Morgan Esq, UND

DR Snoxell Esq, UKM, Geneva

SR Martin Feg, Peking

JP Millington Esq, Washington

G W Woodrow Esq, Ottawa

IMM CR 1/328 Pt 11

I C Orr Esq, APA, GS, HK

TR Peters

for Director of Immigration

Share This Page