CONFIDENTIAL
-10-
It is, in any case, inevitable that a number of the refugees already in Hong Kong will not be accepted for resettlement elsewhere and will have to be allowed to remain in Hong Kong. To try and alleviate this problem, the Home Office earlier this year agreed to accept into the UK 61 refugees from Hong Kong who could not be resettled elsewhere. The number, although small, represented some 25% of the total number of refugees who were unlikely to be resettled at the time the offer was made. Consideration is now being given to accepting a larger group. Once a decision on this has been made we would hope to approach other countries in an attempt to obtain similar assistance from them.
Relations between the IIong Kong government and the UNHCR are excellent and the UNHCR representative in the region pays frequent visits to Hong Kong. He and his colleagues have been particularly helpful in arranging accommodation for the refugees in hotels. It has been, and remains, the policy of the Hong Kong government not to open camps for these refugees,
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