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Your commentary reminds me of the days when I worked as a health officer in the midst of boatloads of refugees that started in 1979, a few years after the reunification of Vietnam. We witnessed daily arrivals of hundreds of refugees cramped in small boats, and occasionally, several thousand "human cargo" in ships. Despite the small size (about 1000 Sq Km) and large population of Hong Kong (4 million), we had no choice but to accept them, making use of whatever space available - factory buildings, army barracks, prisons, and purpose-built refugee camps. The reason? Humanitarian. Clearly they needed help, and so did Hong Kong. The then Prime Minister of Britain, Mrs. Thatcher called an international meeting, urging western countries to accept these refugees while Hong Kong remained the "first port of call". Our population of refugees swung from tens of thousands to peak at 100,000 at some stages, and started to decline slowly when countries like the US, Canada and Australia started resettling them. None of them wished to stay in Hong Kong for good. Most aspire to go to California or Florida. Some refugees rescued by Scandinavian ships in the sea would turn down the offer by these countries, but wait for the US instead . The refugee problem in Hong Kong lingered on till the '80s, when we had to "absorb" those not granted immigrant status by the west into our local population. We never turned away anyone until there was a agreement with the Vietnam government to assist the refugees economically. After tackling this problem at source, the tide of refugee gradually waned. The slow resettlement of the existing refugees by the major recipient countries meant we were stuck with a substantial number (around 20,000) well until the late 1980s. Throughout all these years, we provided housing, food, health care and employment (during the earlier period) to the refugees.
I hope the above account can be an example to show how the affluent and developed countries should do to help the refugees.
Competing interests:
No competing interests
08 June 2015
Tze Wai Wong
professor
School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
4/F, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong
I would like to congratulate you for raising issues regarding refugees abuse and ignorance from humanitarian point of view.
It's really sad that law enforcement in Australia is now against any kind of provision especially for children.
On the other hand, I am really suspicious regarding incentives and resources of the refugees. In the case of Kos island it is known that refugees pay a few thousand US dollars per capita.
Nevertheless, refugees are most likely being used by the Greek or similarly the Italian or Spanish government to attract EU attention and money.
Extreme poverty, inequality and oppression should be uprooted if we really care about these people.
What we did in 1979
Dear Editor
Your commentary reminds me of the days when I worked as a health officer in the midst of boatloads of refugees that started in 1979, a few years after the reunification of Vietnam. We witnessed daily arrivals of hundreds of refugees cramped in small boats, and occasionally, several thousand "human cargo" in ships. Despite the small size (about 1000 Sq Km) and large population of Hong Kong (4 million), we had no choice but to accept them, making use of whatever space available - factory buildings, army barracks, prisons, and purpose-built refugee camps. The reason? Humanitarian. Clearly they needed help, and so did Hong Kong. The then Prime Minister of Britain, Mrs. Thatcher called an international meeting, urging western countries to accept these refugees while Hong Kong remained the "first port of call". Our population of refugees swung from tens of thousands to peak at 100,000 at some stages, and started to decline slowly when countries like the US, Canada and Australia started resettling them. None of them wished to stay in Hong Kong for good. Most aspire to go to California or Florida. Some refugees rescued by Scandinavian ships in the sea would turn down the offer by these countries, but wait for the US instead . The refugee problem in Hong Kong lingered on till the '80s, when we had to "absorb" those not granted immigrant status by the west into our local population. We never turned away anyone until there was a agreement with the Vietnam government to assist the refugees economically. After tackling this problem at source, the tide of refugee gradually waned. The slow resettlement of the existing refugees by the major recipient countries meant we were stuck with a substantial number (around 20,000) well until the late 1980s. Throughout all these years, we provided housing, food, health care and employment (during the earlier period) to the refugees.
I hope the above account can be an example to show how the affluent and developed countries should do to help the refugees.
Competing interests: No competing interests