POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION
Recreation
In the early stages, familiarisation excursions and recreational activities outside the centres have taken place in organised groups under supervision by the UNHCR or its agents. As liberalisation progresses, refugees have been permitted to leave the centre without supervision.
Medical Services
The UNHCR has taken over the medical services in some of the refugee camps. Refugees needing hospital facilities will however continue to be sent to local hospitals. The government will continue to provide medical services in the other centres until UNHCR takes over this responsibility completely.
It is hoped that these liberalisation measures and the opening of all the refugee centres will provide refugees with the necessary education, working experience, work and social skills to aid their integration into their ultimate resettlement communities.
All asylum seekers arriving in Hong Kong after June 15, 1988, are accommodated in detention centres pending screening, and all those asylum seekers who have been determined by the screening process as non-refugees will also be detained in these centres pending repatriation to Vietnam.
The conditions under which the asylum seekers and persons determined as non-refugees are detained will be, subject to exceptional security requirement, no more restrictive than those in-closed centres prior to June 16, 1988. The detainees are not allowed to leave the centres, except for special trips such as educational excursions for the children or attendance for medical treatment in hospitals. Voluntary agencies continue to operate under the auspices of the UNHCR and provide the necessary social services, including education, recreation, vocational training and workshop activities.
At the end of 1989, there were two closed centres, two open centres, and 12 detention centres. Of the total number of refugees in the centres, 4 740 left during the year for resettlement elsewhere, while 14 chose to accept resettlement in Hong Kong.
The three major resettlement countries were Canada, the United States and Australia, all of which continued to provide an ongoing programme for resettling Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. The United Kingdom had resettled 194 refugees from Hong Kong. As part of an international effort to lessen the refugee problem in Hong Kong, Hong Kong itself had agreed to accept 250 Vietnamese refugees of Chinese origin for local resettlement. However, the scheme has met with little response from the refugees. So far, only 121 have taken advantage of this resettlement offer by Hong Kong.
The cost of maintaining the Vietnamese boat people and refugees in Hong Kong came to $471 million in 1989, of which $340 million was spent on detention centres, $122 million on closed centres, and $9 million on the open centres. The UNHCR contributed a total of $50 million towards the upkeep of refugees during 1989.
In September 1988, the government entered into an agreement with the UNHCR under which the UNHCR would be responsible for all costs related to the provision of medical services, food, transport and other services, whereas the government would bear the capital costs of the construction of refugee and VBP centres. In 1989, a total of $472 million was spent on the construction and maintenance of centres.
Some Vietnamese refugees settled in China have subsequently arrived in Hong Kong. They are known as ex-China Vietnamese Illegal Immigrants (ECVIIs). At the end of the year, there were 321 ECVIIS in Hong Kong awaiting repatriation to China.
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