Laos refugee denied exit visa to move to Australia
August 24 2010 by Liam Clifford
Australian Visa - Australian Flag
A refugee who has been told he can legally move to Australia and claim asylum has been trapped in Laos for three years.
The Hmong tribesman from Laos has suffered at the hands of torturers in the past and has spent the last two decades in a cycle of being arrested, jailed and released. However, in 2007 he was granted an Australian visa for humanitarian reasons, which would allow him to settle in Australia as a refugee.
Despite this lifeline, neither Thailand nor Laos will grant him an exit visa to allow him to move to Australia and he has, therefore, been languishing in refugee camps and in hiding for the past three years.
The situation came to a head last December when Thailand forcibly removed the man, along with over 150 more UN-recognised refugees. They were removed by the Thai Army and sent to a detention camp in Laos. At this point, Australia said it had already granted Australian visas to 16 of the refugees and would work to resettle 47 of the group in Australia. The man recently escaped from the detention centre and is once more in hiding in Laos.
The man now lives in shared accommodation with many other men and cannot work or leave his home for fear of being caught. He explained to The Age newspaper, "Every day it is the same, I am afraid. If they catch me, they send me back. I cannot live in Laos. They will kill me.”
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