KL to repatriate boat people

KL to repatriate boat people

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Malaysia will forcibly repatriate hundreds of Vietnamese boat people in the same way they arrived over the past two decades -- by sea.

Refugee officials said yesterday up to 500 Vietnamese in the Sungai Besi camp outside Kuala Lumpur would be taken to the east coast port of Kuantan this week and transported back to Vietnam on Malaysian navy vessels.

It will be the first instance in which Vietnamese migrants, among the estimated 1.6 million who have fled the Communist government, would be forcibly returned by ship.

Malaysia's Task Force on Vietnamese migrants said it would announce details of the repatriation today.

The prospect of a forcible return to the land they fled in rickety boats has prompted two riots at the Sungai Besi camp in the past six months.