5,000 Hmong flee from Thai refugee camp — Thailand must give UN access to persons seeking refuge

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has learned that some 5,000 Laotian Hmong refugees have today on the International Day of the Refugee fled from the Ban Huay Nam Khao camp in Thailand to march to the Refugee Committee of the United Nations (UNHCR) in Bangkok. The present situation is that their route is being blocked by a military unit stationed in the area, which is trying to force them back to the refugee camp, states the Thai newspaper The Nation on its homepage today.

The GfbV calls on the Thai government and the Thai ambassador in Germany in an urgent letter to finally give access to the refugee agency of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) access to the Hmong. This should investigate independently the reasons for flight of those individually concerned and if necessary recognize their need for help. The human rights organisation also wrote to the EU Commission in Bangkok , asking it not to disregard the cry for help from the Hmong and to speak up for them.

„This desperate break-out of the Hmong from Laos is not surprising, since they are constantly threatened with deportation by the Thai authorities. For hundreds of them this could mean years in prison, maltreatment, torture and rape or indeed death“, reported the GfbV. For in Laos some Hmong groups are being mercilessly hunted on account of their link with former Hmong fighters, who during the Vietnam war more than 30 years ago were recruited by the American CIA as mercenaries. More than 10,000 Hmong, among them being many children, young people and women, still have to remain in hiding in the jungle from the Laotian and Vietnamese military.

On many occasions the human rights organisation was able to prevent deportations at the last minute, when it often came to dramatic scenes. There were cases of refugees desperately jumping off lorries or clinging in fear for their lives to trees or bushes and being driven forward by the security forces with electro-shocks or batons.

In the Thai camp at Petchabun there are at present about 8,000 Hmong refugees from Laos , who are all to be sent back by the end of the year. Thailand does not recognize the Hmong as refugees, but terms them „economic migrants“.