Hmong Refugees locked in Nong Khai Detention Center

 

Since December 2006, the government of Thailand has imprisoned 149 Laotian Hmong in the immigration detention center, in Nong Khai, near the Laos border. This group of Hmong, many of whom had fought alongside the United States in the 1960s and 1970s before the communist takeover of their country in 1975, threatened suicide rather than being forcibly returned to Laos. They feared being handed over to a government that credible reports indicate has detained, tortured, abused and killed Hmong for suspected involvement in an insurgency or for holding anti-government views.
Last August, the UN and the diplomatic community denounced the increasingly inhumane conditions of detention: 77 children including 9 infants held in a tropical climate in two overcrowded rooms with two water taps and no outdoor exercise. The imprisoned Hmong were permitted some time outdoors, additional food, and a place for children to play. But the threats of forced return continued.

The UNHCR said despite improvements, the detention centre standards still fell well below international requirements. The agency was particularly concerned with the plight of the children, five of whom had been born in detention.
150 Hmong, locked up in Nong Khai Immigration Detention Center, are recognized as refugees by international organisations in need of protection and should be allowed to leave Thailand and take up an offer of resettlement already made by other countries. Australia, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands volunteered to take them, but the Hmong still remain in limbo at the centre.