BACKGROUND
Hong Kong is concerned at the continued high level of refugee
arrivals particularly in the summer (more than 7,500 this year),
while resettlement places (principally in the US who have cut
down from 1,500 to 250 a month) have fallen sharply, despite
the best efforts of UNHCR. Unless refugee departures from
Vietnam drop sharply next year as a result of the discouraging
rate of resettlement, Hong Kong will face a build up of new
arrivals, and increasing difficulty in finding places for the
40% hard core cases who have been there more than two years.
Our
We continue to lobby, eg, the US (Ambassador Eugene Douglas
was here last month), the Australians, Swedes, French etc,
but are not in a position to help Hong Kong ourselves.
Vietnamese refugee programme has not been an unqualified success
and in any case, apart from family reunion cases, the UK is
not the country the refugees want to go to.
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