Bangkok Post News (29/8/98)

[mandalay@xxxxxxxxxx]

<bigger>More exiles to be admitted

</bigger><italic>

Including 'persons of concern' to UNHCR

</italic>


Some 500 more exiled Burmese students are expected to be admitted into a
"safe are" in Ratchaburi in the coming months, swelling the population
there to more than 1,000, officials said yesterday. 

	The new batch included those who were "persons of concern" to the United
Nations High Commmissioner for Refugees, the officials added.

	There are currently 504 Burmese at Maneelok camp, including 375"persons
of concern".

	Since the camp's opening 1991, a total of 1,544 have been resetled in
third countries, including 513 in the United States, 617 in Canada, 409
in Australia, four in Sweden, and one in England.

	About 110 students from Maneeloi joined a three-week-long protest at the
Burmese embassy in Bangkok that was broken up on Wednesday after a total
of 30 people were arrested.

	Meanwhile, a stupa being built by Burmese troops opposite Suan Pueng
district is actually on Thai soil, according to a source in the Surasri
Task Force.

	The soure said army survey officers had found that the stupa now under
construction by troops of Burma's 17ht battalion was located about 30
metres deep into Thai territory at Ban Tako Lang, in Suan Pueng district
of Ratchaburi.


----------------------------- The End --------------------------