re-
being committed to their own way of life and traditions and having heard about the difficulties of integration in an alien land from those who had chosen to accept third country resettle- ment. In addition to resettlement, UNHCR is continuing its efforts to promote voluntary repatriation. Although mass patriation, as in the case of the Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, has not been possible, the voluntary return of small groups continues to
facilitated by UNHCR despite the political complexities of
of the relationship between the country of origin and the country of asylum.
86. sphe
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Viet Nam (The Socialist Republic of)
83. end.
On 30 April 1975 the long war in Viet Nam came to an Fourteen months later, on 2 July 1976, the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam was pro- claimed.
At the time of the departure of Americans from South Viet
Viet Nam, some 130 000 Vietnamese left by any means available. Since, 466 000 have arrived by small boat, merchant vessel or ocean-going freighter in various countries of the world, 263 000 have crossed into the People's Republic of China. Some small groups have even managed to cross Kampuchea and reach Thailand. Undocumented are those who left Viet Nam by sea but did not reach land.
84. If the boat exodus began as a trickle in mid-1975, account-
in the first two and a half years for only some ing arrivals, in 1978 numbers rose dramaticaly (90 000 arrivals in 12 months) and by March 1979, monthly arrivals were into five figures (13 400) only to double in April (26 600) and double again in May and June (51 000 and 57
(51 000 and 57 000 respectively). The exodus has taken place from a
a country which had been violently torn apart by over 30 years of war and which, in recent years, has been facing very considerable economic problems while introducing far-reaching socio-political changes.
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85. The Vietnamese trace their history back to the Hung Vuong kings who are said to have ruled in what is northern Viet Nam during the third or
millennium before our era. second
After about a thousand years as a province of China, Viet Nam from about the year 893 gradually developed into a strong and fairly centralized state, finally assuming its present area
in 1802. Eighty years later, the whole of Viet Nam came under French colonial rule, to be united in 1887 with Cambodia to form the Indo-Chinese Union, to which Laos was added in 1893.