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safety zones for refugees or in their obtaining
assurances from the governments involved that refugee
camps would be safeguarded from attack. We were
particularly concerned about attacks earlier this year
on refugee camps along the Thai/Cambodian border and
about threats to camps holding Zimbabwean refugees in
Botswana.
Asylum Seekers in Distress at Sea
2. Document EC 'SCP/30, which will be considered by
the Sub-Committee on Protection, has not been received
by the Department at the time of briefing.
HMG declined
to participate in a new UNHCR scheme for rescues at sea
resettlement offers (RASRO) earlier this year. Our
ase
reasons were that we continuour commitment as a
flag state to accept Vietnamese refugees rescued by UK
with registered shipping who cannot be resettled by UNHCR fin
90 days. We also accept close family reunion cases.
We are unable to offer an increase in Vietnamese
refugee admissions or to accept la
automatic guarantees for refugee entry beyond our
present commitments. We were concerned that the
system of
unquantifiable guarantees under RASRO would add to
the pull factor and may cause new outflows of refugees.
Both we and Hong Kong were doubtful that UNHCR could
meet assurances about the timely removal of boat-rescue
cases under the scheme or that resettlement opportunities
for the hard core of other refugees (who constitute 40%
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/of cases
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