Montagnards start return to Vietnam from Cambodia
GENEVA - Ethnic hilltribe people began returning home to Vietnam on Friday, the first to accept repatriation after nearly 800 Montagnards fled to Cambodia seeking political asylum last year, the United Nations said.
Under an agreement signed by the two countries and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last January, Hanoi gave written guarantees that they would not be persecuted upon return.
The Montagnards, a loose grouping of mainly Christian ethnic groups, said they fled to northern Cambodia because of religious persecution and land disputes in the troubled Central Highlands.
Under the accord they were also given an option to emigrate to a third country.
A group of nine Montagnards left in a convoy from Phnom Penh on Friday morning, UNHCR spokesman Fernando del Mundo said. "They crossed the border at midday," he told Reuters.
Thirty-four more Montagnards have decided to return to Vietnam, including 16 scheduled to go back in April, he added.
Nearly 300 Montagnards have chosen to resettle in a third country, mainly the United States, followed by Canada and Finland, according to the spokesman.
Cambodia has told the UNHCR, who is caring for the Montagnards in Phnom Penh, that local integration is "not an option", he added.
Reuters - March 11, 2005.
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