Cambodia Addresses Human Rights Group’s Appeal for Asylum for Montagnards

[geovalin]

A Cambodian official on Friday addressed an appeal by an international human rights group not to deport ethnic Montagnard Christians who are seeking refugee status in the Southeast Asian nation to Vietnam, saying that they first must apply for the status and meets its conditions.

Kem Sarin, director of the Ministry of Interior's refugee office, which carries out refugee status determinations, told RFA’s Khmer Service that so far only 13 Montagnards of the more than 100 who had fled to the country from Vietnam since late last year had requested asylum, but that the ministry had not received any actual applications yet.

The Christian indigenous people from Vietnam’s Central Highlands, who say they are fleeing political and religious persecution in their home country, have entered Cambodia illegally to seek refugee status. Most have hidden in Ratanakiri province in the remote northeast of the country. Some have been caught and deported back to Vietnam.

read more: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/human-rights-groups-appeal-for-asylum-for-montagnards-06262015160435.html

[ggt]

Christians being persecuted all over the world...sad for the Montagnards...becoming a people without a country...