Refugees who still wait

Press, 2 March 1981, Page 8

Refugees who still wait

NZPA-Reuter. Singapore •> United /Nations refugee officials' are, worried at the falling number of Vietnamese refugees leaving SouthEast Asia. : r Thenumber fell oft markedly in November and December -last year, and another decline in the first two months of this year is indicated: ■■ ; 7 ; , : For many reasons, the main resettlement countries have failed to take up a sufficient number of refugees to fulfil Jtheir quotas. Mr Zia Rizvi, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the area, is trying to change ?the way countries allocate their quotas. The programme of refugee resettlement' is embarrassed by its own. success: the most easily resettled. refugees have already left’the camps for other. Countries and those left, behind are the ones who .-are the least attractive .to- 3 immigration officers. 3. The numbers of boat people leaving: during November and December, mainly for the United States and Canada, were 8508 and 7251. The January and February figures are expected to be about 5000. ’ But if; the target of resettling most of the ‘ boat people by June 30 is to be reached, resettlement must be at least 10,400 people a month. J * ;■ Residual cases, as the United : Nations unflatteringlv calls them, find problems in getting into resettlement countries not

only because they comai from less attractive social categories but also because the receiving countries organise their quotas for Vietnamese country-by-country, rather than regionally. . If there are not enough suitable candidates from Malaysia, for example, the quota from Malaysia is not filled for a given month and the available places are wasted. The United Nations is planning a drive this year to find new homes for those particularly disadvantaged — the physically handicapped, who have to be accepted with their entire families'; and the socially handicapped. - This latter category, as high as 60 per cent of the population in some camps, includes young men between the ages of 16 and 25. These young men are hard to resettle because immigration officials believe they would bring social problems with them. x ’ , Many of them have no family and have been brought up on the streets of Vietnamese cities during the war years, with all the attendant emotional •■. instability and risk of criminality;- , . . . : The escapers from Vietnam continue to take, to the boats steadily, most of them heading into the Gulf of Thailand in spite of pirate attacks,■ but the United Nations has high hopes for an orderiv- departure programme, Vietnamese going direct from Vietnam to re- . settlement countries. ..