1
CONFIDENTIAL
BRITISH EMBASSY
584
LIMA
Ms JD Wyeth
Disaster and Refugee Unit Bilateral Coordination Dept
ODA
10 September 1986
reed 17/9/86.
Dear My
Wyeth,
UNHCR PROGRAMMES IN PERU
(494
asjit,
M.
1.
Charles de Chassiron's letter of 31 July seeks comments from us on the activities of the UNHCR in Peru. The following is a summary of the refugee problem and the involvement of UNHCR in Peru at the present. The UNHCR office in Lima is a regional unit covering Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname. There is little or no work in either Guyana or Suriname and the refugee "burden" is spread fairly evenly across the remaining four countries. The office has two Geneva-based staff and carries out its activities in Peru through its counter-part organisation, the Peruvian Catholic Migration Commission (CCPM).
2. As at 30 June 1986 the breakdown of the 621 registered refugees in Peru was as follows:
Cubans
382
Central Europeans
159 (displaced persons from
Iranians
46
2nd World War)
Chileans
19
Nicaraguans
Hungarians
2
El Salvadorean
1
Angolan
1
1
1
Czechoslovakian
Bolivian
Of the 800 Cubans who came to Peru following the mass invasion of the Peruvian Embassy in Havana in 1980, over half have been resettled elsewhere and UNHCR has now reduced its assistance programme to those remaining to almost zero. It has in the past contributed to the provision of low cost basic housing units at the resettlement centre at Pachacamac and has now stopped giving assistance to all except the
CONFIDENTIAL
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