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A group of 116 Vietnamese, including 115 Vietnamese illegal immigrants (VIIs) and one migrant, returned by air to Hanoi, Vietnam, today (May 16) under the Orderly Repatriation Programme (ORP).

The returnees comprise 99 men, 12 women, four boys and one girl. The majority of them arrived in Hong Kong in 2000.

This is the 130th ORP flight, and the first arranged after announcement on February 22, 2000 of the widened Local Resettlement Scheme (WLRS), which allows Vietnamese refugees and eligible Vietnamese migrants who arrived Hong Kong before the port of first asylum policy was scrapped on January 9, 1998 to apply for settlement in Hong Kong.

"However, the WLRS does not apply to VIIs, and there is no question of the scheme attracting a new wave of illegal immigrants from Vietnam," a spokesman from the Security Bureau said.

"The Government's policy is to repatriate VIIs promptly and this policy will continue," the spokesman said, adding that with assistance from the Vietnamese Government and Mainland coastal provinces, the Government had been able to prevent any influx of VIIs.

After today's flight, the total number of Vietnamese repatriated under ORP since October 1991 is 14,567.

End/Tuesday, May 16, 2000

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