§ Mr. BoothTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Vietnamese migrants.
§ Mr. HurdThe orderly repatriation programme is proving most successful; since it started in November 1991, a total of 487 Vietnamese illegal immigrants have been repatriated from Hong Kong. There were only 12 new arrivals in Hong Kong in 1992 compared with 20,207 in 1991.
Since the start of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' voluntary repatriation programme in 1989, some 35,000 Vietnamese migrants have been screened out and returned home voluntarily, more than 26,000 of them from Hong Kong. There has been no substantiated report of persecution.
At present rates of return and resettlement, the Hong Kong camps should be empty in about three years.