The first of more than 900 Montagnard refugees waiting to be resettled in the US are expected to be cleared to leave Cambodia by the end of the month, a source close to the resettlement process said Tuesday.
The Montagnards, who fled Vietnam’s Central Highlands and have spent much of the last year in UN camps in Ratanakkiri and Mondolkiri provinces, are currently being interviewed by US immigration officials.
“Up to now, 726 of the refugees have been given passports and visas,” Interior Ministry official Mok Chito told Reuters Monday. “We expect them to begin leaving for America before the end of the month.”
They will be moved to the US state of North Carolina, home to the largest community of Montagnards in the US.
But while local authorities view the resettlement as the end to a one year-long refugee situation that often strained relations between Cambodia and Vietnam, the source said Montagnard asylum seekers continue to cross the border into Cambodia.
A group of 70 was reportedly hiding in the jungles of Mondolkiri earlier this month and more than twice that number are now said to be making their way into Cambodia, the source said.
Provincial police have so far not confirmed the existence of any other Montagnards, and the government continues to maintain that any caught inside Cambodia will be deported as illegal immigrants.
