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possibility of extending these by some 500/600 places. Taking the average length of stay, as ten days, some 10,000 persons could pass through the transit centre each month from the end of September onwards. In Kuala Lumpur, present capacity was of 6,000; by the beginning of September it would be increased to 10,000. In Jakarta, the present capacity of 200 was hardly needed in view of the distance from the refugee camps to the capital; onward movement via Singapore was far more practical. In Singapore, transit capacity, at present at 1,000 including accommodation for persons disembarking from rescuing vessels would, have to be expanded by the finding of additional facilities. In Manila, the José Fabella Centre could be used as a transit centre once the caseload living there had been resettled.
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33. Mr. Cuénod requested resettlement countries to reduce to a minimum the length of time persons proceeding to their countries should stay in the transit centres, in the interests of speeding up movement and leaving space for others to be brought in from the camps for onward movement.
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34. Mr. Lowman, seconded by Mr. Simington, requested UNHCR to ensure that the transit facilities in Singapore were increased to cater for increasing.. numbers being moved from the islands in the Riau Group. Alternatively, a transit centre might be set up in the Riau Islands. Miss Brissimi indicated that some thought was already being given to this possibility.
35. Participants in the meeting were requested to indicate the length of time they required for processing a refugee for resettlement, from getting the initial interviewing to departure. A note of the replies is given in Annex II. It was suggested that any further technical information needed from countries by UNHCR could be obtained by means of a questionnaire.
36. Mr. Cuénod outlined the present situation with regard to Refugee Processing Centres. Following the announcement at the Meeting of General Romulo, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Philippines, that his Government was prepared to make available a new site capable of holding 50,000 persons, Mr. Gobius on his return to Manila would contact the authorities for discussions. The feasibility study on the, proposed RPC. on Galang Island, some 90 miles south of Singapore, had been completed in June and work had started to establish the centre for a maximum of 10,000 persons. On the same island, work had begun to establish a camp for first asylum cases with a maximum capacity for 20,000 persons. With regard to the earlier offer of the Government of the Philippines of the island of Tara for an RPC with a capacity of 10,000 persons, a team of experts had visited the island but the feasibility study is, not yet available. The Government was, however, establishing shelter and barracks to move at least the remaining caseload from the "Tung An", a ship that arrived in Filipino waters at the end of 1978.
37. Mr. Chapatte recalled that the Swiss emergency volunteer corps, which came under the auspices of the Federal Department for Foreign Affairs, was prepared to proceed to South East Asia at short notice to assist in the building up of suitable facilities in an RPC.
38. In reply to a question from Mr. Opdahl as to the Office's policy on matters of adoption, Miss Brissimi explained that there were very few children in the caseload who could be proved to be orphans. Of a sample of 520 unaccompanied children, for example, 38 appeared to be orphans, and the age, range was mostly 14-17 years.
Miss Brissimi, said that UNHCR had benefited from the findings of
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