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UNHCR withdraws from repatriation accord for hill-tribe people
The United Nations refugee agency has withdrawn from an agreement on the voluntary repatriation of hill-tribe people to Vietnam, claiming Cambodia and Vietnam have violated the terms of the accord.
The UN agency says the move follows an incident on Thursday in which more than 400 Vietnamese arrived at a refugee camp in Cambodia's northeastern Mondulkiri province and "threatened and manhandled" refugees and UNHCR staff.
A UNHCR statement says UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers has written to the foreign ministers of both governments expressing "grave concern" over the incident.
In his letter sent on Friday, Mr Lubbers said the ethnic Montagnard refugees were subjected to an "unprecedented and unacceptable" level of coercion to repatriate, while UNHCR staff had had their lives threatened for trying to protect the refugees.
Cambodia on Friday admitted that Vietnam had sent 400 people to a Cambodian refugee camp but denied there was any violence or intimidation.
Vietnam also denied there had been any coercion and said the group that travelled to the camp in Cambodia were family members of the refugees.
24/03/2002 15:30:40 | ABC Radio Australia News
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