TNAG-1531-FCO40-2095-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-general-1987 — Page 4

The

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The residual cases are unfortunately

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nothing new since the whole crisis started some 10 years ago.

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concern of the country of so-called first asylum and the subsequent discussion between this country and the country of resettlement have always tackled this problem of backlogs and number of people who would

Yet I think that this problem stay longer before being resettled.

also should be viewed, at least initially, against the background of what has been since I would say 1977-78 and later has been achieved.

It has to be recalled that over 1.3 million people actually left Indo-China and that today some close to 1.2 million people have been resettled in third country. From that point of view I think it is a remarkable success and effort undertaken by the international community by quite a large number of countries, the one offering asylum initially, the other one resettling such a large number of people, so that the present case load of people not yet resettled have to be seen, as I have said, against that initial achievement.

So

It is true that also already in the past it happened occasionally that kind of cyclical movement where either new arrivals increased or where it took a little bit longer to resettle people. that I think at no stage should one take lightly people who have not been resettled or people who have not been permitted to integrate locally or to benefit from any other kind of solution, and this presently certainly is one effort UNHCR is doing in analysing exactly who is left where and what his chances are to be rapidly resettled.

It is true to say also that there are a few cases which 28 might be more difficult to solve yet I would say everything should I do be undertaken to find also proper solution for these people. know that here in Hong Kong the whole problem of long stayer has been of concern to everyone including, of course, and basically to UNHCR

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we will give special attention to that problem.

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When it comes to repatriation, I think it is much too

36 early for the time being for me to really comment since here it is

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