XI.
76.
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
During 1986 major
resettlement of Vietnamese
efforts were made to speed up the
refugees in camps in Hong Kong.
Following the decision by Her Majesty's Government in September 1985
to accept some 500 refugees from Hong Kong, for family reunion in the
United Kingdom under relaxed criteria, a diplomatic campaign was
mounted by Her Majesty's Government, supported by the Hong Kong
Government, to persuade other countries to offer more resettlement
places to Hong Kong. Many countries responded possitively,
including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. For
its part the Hong Kong Government decided to accept 250 more refugees of Chinese origin for local settlement.
77.
In response to a request made by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, the Hong Kong Government also agreed, in
February 1986, to establish a transit centre in Hong Kong, to help
facilitate the resettlement of refugees rescued at sea under the
International Rescue at Sea Resettlement Offers scheme.
78.
However, eleven years
eleven years after the end of the war in Vietnam
there is still no durable solution in sight to the problem of the
continuing exodus of refugees. During 1986 the number of Vietnamese
refugees arriving in Hong Kong doubled compared with 1985.
This was
the first time that the rate of arrivals in the
the territory had
increased since the implementation of the quote closed centre
unquote policy in July 1982. Much of the benefit from an improved
resettlement in 1986 was thus cancelled out by the Large
in the number of new arrivals in Hong Kong. Further,
although some 3,816 refugees were resettled from Hong Kong in 1986 this level is unlikely to be maintained in 1987. The efforts of Her
Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government resettlement thus
brought a fall of 1,400 in the Vietnamese refugee population to the
end of the year. But 8,039 remained to be resettled.
rate
of
increase