MSF and UN question if Hmong going back to Laos voluntarily

Refugees rushed to hide five young children split from their mother, who was part of a dozen "volunteers" taken from the camp on Wednesday.

Some 11 Hmong were sent back to Laos late on Wednesday but both UN officials and MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres), which funds the camp, say they have serious doubts about whether the returnees went back voluntarily.

One of the returnees trucked out of Huay Nam Khao on Wednesday was a young mother separated from her five children, including a 2-year-old baby. Yesterday, Thai officials sent the woman back from Nong Khai, after apparently realising she really had been split from her baby and kids.

But instead of returning the woman to the camp, she was held in an adjacent facility and made to use a loud speaker to "call her children to come to Laos with her", MSF national director Gilles Isard said.

However, refugees in the camp, apparently believing the woman was reluctant to go to Laos, hid her children in the camp, which houses nearly 8,000 people.

"Some Hmong are trying to hide the children, and we are trying to talk to the woman, but the Thai authorities won't talk to our staff at present," he said.

At the time of going to press, his staff believed troops were about to enter the camp to search for the children.

"Relatives at the camp have said not all the people being returned were volunteers. Some were loaded by force," he said.

"This mother was not willing to go but they took her [on Wednesday]. And all her children were left crying at home.

"The mood in the camp is very bad. Everyone is very anxious. They feel really desperate.

"The (Thai) Army says eight families have been identified as volunteers and four went on Wednesday but some of the other four families say they don't know why they are on the list [to go back]. They are unlikely to be volunteers. It includes one person who was shot [by Lao troops] in 2001."

The MSF chief said Army officers had given it no information on the individuals being sent back and was operating "with no transparency at all".

Kitty McKinsey, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, voiced concern. She said: "We have received a number of reports that call into question whether everyone actually volunteered to go back. Such returns should be strictly voluntary, conducted with dignity and in accordance with international standards."

The return of the Hmong at the Phetchabun has been talked about by Thai and Lao officials for months, but the matter is highly contentious because both countries refuse to allow independent monitors to screen genuine refugees from "economic migrants" hoping to be resettled abroad.

MSF officials warned late last year many hundreds of Hmong in the camp looked to have authentic claims to refugee status and that dozens could even show bullet wounds from clashes with the Lao and Vietnamese military.

The state of anxiety about forced repatriation was such they expect it will spark riots.

Some officials monitoring the situation expect Thailand will begin trucking groups of up to 200 Hmong back Laos in the near future - and they predict the situation at Huay Nam Khao will descend into bloodshed.

Hmong support groups in the US such as the Fact Finding Commission claim some of the latest families may have been paid Bt10,000 to be repatriated - possibly to "curry favour" before the official visit by new prime minister Samak Sundaravej, who travelled to Vientiane early Friday.

by Jim Pollard

The Nation