UNHCR Thanks Canada as Montagnards Depart Cambodia

Posted: 11 Feb, 2011

The UN refugee agency today thanked Canada for generously allowing 50 Montagnard refugees from the Central Highlands of Viet Nam to start new lives there after living in Cambodia for between one and six years.

“We are extremely grateful to Canada for opening its doors to these last individuals who needed a new place to live, and for their children to get an education,” said Jean-Noël Wetterwald, UNHCR’s Regional Representative, who was in Cambodia on Tuesday for talks with the Cambodian government and UNHCR partners. “Canada’s generosity highlights the importance of resettlement as one of the ways UNHCR and donor countries work together to protect refugees.”

The 50 – 32 females and 18 males – left Cambodia on flights for Québec City on Monday and Wednesday nights. They range in age from 57 to two babies born within the last six months. Most of the adults were farmers or weavers in Viet Nam and some learned some English and basic computer skills at the refugee site in Cambodia.

The United States is also accepting four refugees for resettlement and one through immigration after the Cambodian government set a 15 Feb. deadline for closing a UNHCR-funded refugee compound housing Montagnards in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Of the 75 Montagnards who were at the refugee site when the closure announcement was made, aside from the 55 who are going to Canada and the U.S., 10 were found not to be refugees and are scheduled to return to Viet Nam.

“That still leaves 10 more people, and we expect they will be able to emigrate from Cambodia in the near future,” Wetterwald said.

The term ‘Montagnard,’ meaning ‘mountain people’ in French, encompasses several distinct ethnic groups from remote hill villages that share common cultural customs, religious beliefs, and language. Of the 50 going to Canada, 37 are of the Jarai ethnicity.

“Because Cambodia has signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and has set up its own refugee status determination mechanism, the claims of any asylum-seekers who come to Cambodia – regardless of where they come from -- will have to be heard by Cambodia in the future,” said Wetterwald.

END

For further information please contact:

Kitty McKinsey

Spokesperson for UNHCR in Asia (based in Bangkok)

Mobile +66 08 1827 0280