UN offer asylum and medical care
Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/AP) - Thirty-one ethnic Vietnamese hill tribe people who fled their homeland arrived in the Cambodian capital yesterday after UN refugee workers and local authorities rescued them from the jungle.
The Montagnards, as they are collectively known, arrived on a chartered flight from the northeastern province of Ratannakiri and were led to a UN shelter in Phnom Penh. More were expected to arrive tomorrow.
The 31 are among 181 Montagnard asylum seekers picked up last week in Ratannakiri after languishing - in some cases for several months - in the rain-soaked, remote mountainous region near the border with Vietnam.
The asylum seekers, including women nursing babies, looked pale as they walked to the bus. UN officials who accompanied them said they would undergo medical check-ups.
Gary Jacques, executive director of the Sihanouk Hospital Centre of Hope, had examined the Montagnards in Ratannakiri and said some were quite ill, but that the group's overall health was good.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung accused the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees of encouraging the exodus with offers of asylum in Cambodia.
Many Montagnards fled Vietnam's Central Highlands in April following massive demonstrations, against religious repression and land confiscation, last April. The protests turned violent when police and security forces moved in. Human rights groups have said at least 10 people died and dozens more were injured, while Vietnamese authorities maintain only two were killed.
Since then the refugees have been living off tubers, rainwater in Cambodia's malaria-ridden jungles for months.
The Montagnards were US allies during the Vietnam war and many have resettled in the United States.