The Lao government is ready to accept more than 7,000 Hmongs who are now living in makeshift camps in a Thai northern village after verifying their identities, Thailand's supreme commander Gen. Boonsang Niempradit said on Friday.

 

There are more than 7,000 Hmongs living in the camps near the Thai village of Huay Nam Khao in Phetchabun province and the verification and repatriation processes should not take more than one year, Boonsang was quoted by the official Thai News Agency as saying.

 

Many of the Hmongs hill tribe minority had served the former pro-American government as soldiers before it fell to the present government in 1975. In recent years, many Hmongs have surrendered to the Lao government while others have quietly left their mountainous homeland and entered neighboring Thailand to seek refuge, according to the report.

 

Thailand is seeking to repatriate Hmongs who entered illegally, Boonsang was quoted as saying.

 

The plan to send back the remaining Hmongs through proper channels came after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Bangkok in mid-November expressed its concerns about Thailand's deportation to Laos of 152 ethnic Hmong, including a newborn baby.

 

The Thai-Lao border commission will meet on Dec. 19 in Thailand's Nong Khai Province to consider the fate of 152 Lao Hmongs that Thailand tried to deport last month.

 

Early this month, Boonsang has said that there are now some 2 million illegal immigrants staying in Thailand and it is impossible to push all of them back to their countries. It is also not possible to prevent more illegal immigrants to enter the country because Thailand shares a long border with neighboring countries.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2006)