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Over 30,000 Myanmar refugees resettled abroad: UN
More than 30,000 Myanmar refugees from camps in neighbouring Thailand have been resettled in other countries, the United Nations said Wednesday, calling it the worlds biggest such effort.Since the programme began in January 2005, 30,144 refugees have left the camps for new lives overseas, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement. Some of the refugees have been here for nearly two decades. Some were born in refugee camps, grew up there and are now raising their own families in refugee camps, said UNHCRs regional representative Raymond Hall. For them resettlement offers a way out of the camps and the opportunity for a fresh start in life. Almost all of the resettled refugees had been living in nine camps strung along Thailands border with Myanmar, where more than 123,000 still live. Most of them belong to the ethnic Karen minority, which has been battling Myanmars military regime for decades. The United States has accepted the vast majority of the refugees, resettling nearly 21,500 of them in cities around the country. Australia received more than 3,400, and Canada has taken in more than 2,600. The others have gone to New Zealand and Europe, UNHCR said. Posted by: Fred 2008-06-26 |
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