Safety fears for Hmong after Thai expulsion

The Thai army said it completed the deportation of more than more than 4,000 Hmong on Monday, despite international protests and calls from the United States and the United Nations to halt the operation.

Rights group Amnesty International also said there were "concerns that provisions to meet the humanitarian needs of the returnees once in Laos are inadequate".

The Hmong, a Southeast Asian ethnic group, were seeking asylum in Thailand saying they risked persecution by the Laotian regime for fighting alongside US forces in the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s.

But Bangkok -- which used 5,000 troops armed with batons and shields to load the groups of men, women and children on to trucks for the deportations from a camp in northern Thailand -- said most were illegal economic migrants.

It did not allow the United Nations to assess if any of the total 4,371 expelled from the camp were political refugees.

However, Thailand also sent back on Monday a separate group of 158 Hmong with recognised UN refugee status, in a move the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said was a breach of international law.

Laotian foreign affairs spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing said the authorities did not recognise any refugees in the returning group and that all of the Hmong had been illegal immigrants in Thailand.

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