32 Vietnamese illegal immigrants nabbed in Hong Kong
HONG KONG - Hong Kong police have arrested 32 Vietnamese
illegal immigrants attempting to sneak into the territory on two
rickety motorised wooden boats on the western shore of Kowloon
peninsula, a spokesman said on Thursday.
Police were alerted by a taxi driver who reported seeing a group
of people behaving suspiciously in the vicinity.
A search was immediately launched and the 32 Vietnamese
were picked up in the nearby districts of Castle Peak, Tuen Mun
and Tsuen Wan.
Weapons including several knives were also seized, police said.
Four other illegal immigrants were believed to be still at large.
Some 80 Vietnamese illegal immigrants have been arrested so
far this year compared to 170 throughout 2001, according to
latest police figures.
In June 2000, Hong Kong allowed around 1,000 Vietnamese
refugees to remain in the territory, after the last Hong
Kong-based Vietnamese detention camp was closed and they
were unable to resettle them overseas.
The closure brought to an end a 25-year boatpeople saga which
began with the fall of Saigon to communist North Vietnamese
forces in April 1975.
The then-British administration of Hong Kong declared the colony
a port of first asylum for anyone fleeing Vietnam, allowing them
automatic refugee status and eligibility for resettlement in the
West.
Agence France Presse - July 04, 2002.
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