Cambodia gives UNHCR another 3 months to return over 200 Montagnards to Vietnam

Cambodia gave an ultimatum to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to send more than 200 Montagnards back to Vietnam by Feb.6 next year, according to a press statement on Tuesday.

The statement, issued by the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the UNHCR had secretly transported those Montagnards to Cambodia, an act that violates Cambodia's immigration law and sovereignty.

"Based on humanitarian sentiment, the government has given another 3-month period to the UNHCR to send those Montagnards back to Vietnam by February 6, 2016," the statement said.

Meanwhile, it said that the Cambodian government in March granted refugee status to 13 Montagnards. Under a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding signed by the UNHCR, Cambodia and Vietnam, the UNHCR has to seek a third country for the 13 Montagnards within six months, but now the six-month deadline was over and the agency still could not lobby the third country to accept them.

The statement said due to good cooperation between Cambodia and UNHCR, the Cambodian government has decided to extend another 3-month period to the UNHCR to look for the third country for the 13 Montagnards.

Montagnards are mostly Christian ethnic minority groups that live in Vietnam's mountainous Central Highlands region. Enditem