UN urges Thailand to allow Hmong to resettle in West

The detainees, rounded up in Bangkok for deportation on Nov. 17, 2006, are being held in two cells in an immigration detention centre in Nong Khai on the Mekong River border with Laos, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.

The UNHCR has recognised them as refugees deserving asylum, but Thai authorities say that they are economic migrants facing deportation to Laos.

"Four countries -- the United States, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands -- have offered resettlement places to the refugees, and we believe they should be allowed to leave Thailand for resettlement," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic.

"They have not committed any crime and their detention serves no purpose," he told a news briefing in Geneva.

Known as America's "forgotten allies", the Hmong were recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to fight alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.