Section: IDP Population Figures

Sub-section: Number of IDPs

• Last Updated: 7 May 2010
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Several thousands Hmong people may be hiding in the jungle or living in resettlement villages (2010)

There are currently three main groups of people who can be considered as internally displaced in Laos due to conflict or human rights violations. No accurate figures are available for any of these groups but available information indicates that the total the number of internally displaced people (IDP) in the country may range between several hundreds and several thousands.

The first group of IDPs is composed of people living with Hmong rebels, mostly their relatives, and who should be considered as civilians. They are hiding in the jungle, for some since 1975, although the majority has been born in displacement. Others may have fled in recent years as a result of attacks by government forces on Hmong villages suspected of supporting the rebels. Lack of access makes it impossible to give any precise figures. Estimates range from several hundreds to several thousands although the former is a more likely figure given the fact that many have come out of hiding in recent years (AI, 23 July 2007, p. 6; CRS, 4 January 2010, p. 8). Most are reported to have been relocated in resettlement villages, although information remains scarce mainly due to limited independent access.

The second group of IDPs is closely linked to the first one and is composed of Hmong civilians who in recent years have fled to Thailand to escape alleged human rights violations but have been forcibly sent back to Laos. Due to access restrictions imposed by Thai authorities international organisations have been prevented from assessing how many had fled for legitimate protection concerns and how many had done so for economic reasons. Access has only been granted to one group of 158 Lao-Hmong held in detention and now recognised by the UN as refugees but who have also been forcibly sent back to Laos. Since 2005, a total of 7,500 Lao-Hmong have been forcibly returned to Laos. The majority has reportedly been resettled but in the absence of any independent access provided to international organisations it is not possible to assess to what extent their return was voluntary and if they have been able to achieve durable solutions.

A third group of IDPs is composed of religious minorities, in particular Christians, evicted or forced to flee their villages because of a limitation of their freedom of religion imposed by local authorities, including in some cases campaigns aimed at forcing them to renounce their faith (HRC, 12 February 2010, p. 8). According to information received by the UN Special Rapporteur of freedom of religion or belief, Ms. Asma Jahangir, who visited the country at the end of 2009, these incidents were on the decline (HRC, 27 January 2010, p. 13). No estimates are currently available on the number of internally displaced religious minorities in Laos but their numbers are believed to relatively small.


A. Displaced Hmong people reported to be hiding in the jungle


MSF, 1 May 2008, p.3
"According to people living in the camp and human rights organizations, up to a few thousand Hmong, including women, children and elderly people, still live in the jungle today and continue to be subject to attacks and persecution by the Lao military. As a result, Hmong have continued to flee Laos since the end of the war."


AI, 23 March 2007, p. 6
"No comprehensive data is available about how many people continue to eke out a living in the Lao jungles, on the run from frequent attack by the Lao People’s Army. A precise figure is impossible to calculate: independent observers are not allowed access and the groups are moving around in the jungle. There is also a movement between the jungles and mainstream
Laos as people leave their hiding places to try to assimilate into regular society. Current estimates by observers and lobby groups range from several hundred to 3,000 up to as many as 17,000, although the latter figure is probably a significant overestimate."


World Press, 19 January 2007
"The ragtag Hmong guerrillas are one of many small groups estimated to number between 2,000 and 12,000 still hiding in the mountains of Laos. For the last 30 years, their only contact with the outside world is said to be with the Lao and Vietnamese communist soldiers who are hunting them and their families. The Hmong jungle people are the remnants of a "secret war," a counterinsurgency sponsored by the C.I.A. during the Vietnam War. Both the Americans and the communists kept this war secret, even though it became one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in world history."


STP, October 2006, p. 5
"The several thousand Hmong still living in the forest are eking out a miserable existence there in atrocious circumstances, lacking the most basic necessities of life, medicine as well as food. Wounds cannot be dressed and limbs and other body parts are often amputated because wounds cannot be treated properly.

In 2003 the leader of an once sizeable Hmong community used a smuggled solar-powered satellite telephone to give a journalist working for Time Asia Magazine (Time Magazine, 2003-4-28) details he had recorded of the suffering endured by his group. In 1975, when he first began keeping a record of the community’s health, there were 7,000 members. In the years that followed the group broke up into several smaller groups, always on the move from one hiding place to another. By 2003 there were only 800 people left in these groups, including 56 orphans, 40 widows and 11 widowers. 30 per cent of them were suffering from the effects of gunshot wounds. The leader had had to have his own left hand amputated in the rain forest in 1974. The extraordinarily high level of injuries sustained by the members of this one group is indicative of the grim health conditions that the Hmong hidden in the jungle face.

The group now (summer 2006) numbers only 300-500 members, the group’s leader told his brother in the U.S.A. when they spoke over the solar-powered satellite telephone. He could not give a more precise figure because the four sub-groups were surrounded by soldiers and unable to communicate with one another."


European Parliament, 2 September 2005, p. 4
"During the research process we found that there are still somewhere around 12,000 – 20,000
people, former CIA soldiers and their families, still living in the jungle and resisting the Lao
authorities. They live in groups of 250 to 800 people, concentrated in the provinces of
Bolikhamsay, Xaysomboune, Xieng Khouang and Luang Prabang."



B. Displaced Hmong people forced back to Laos from Thailand and China after seeking refuge there


SMH, 13 January 2010
"The 4500 ethnic Hmong asylum seekers - including more than 40 probably bound for Australia - who were forcibly deported from Thailand in late December are being held in squalid secret camps in remote parts of Laos, guarded by soldiers.

The Herald reached the main entrance of a camp at Paksan, on the Mekong River, where hundreds of Hmong hilltribes people stood barefoot in the dirt behind three metres of razor wire as loudspeakers ordered them to move away from the gate."


UNHCR, 28 December 2009
"The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, expressed his dismay today at Thailand's deportation of Lao Hmong. "I call upon the Thai Government to halt the forced return of the Lao Hmong, some of whom have international protection needs," he said.

This morning Thailand began deporting the first group of an estimated 4000 Lao Hmong from the Huay Nam Khao camp in Petchabun, to whom UNHCR has not been granted access. The deportations will continue over the coming days and, as announced by the Thai Government, will include a second group of 158 recognized refugees held in detention in Nong Kai."


UN Special Rapporteur on the situation and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, 18 September 2009, pp. 38-40
"207. In a letter of 18 July 2008, the Special Rapporteur drew the attention of the Government to concerns over the alleged recent forcible return of over 1,200 Hmong individuals to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

208. In summary, according to the information received: On 22 June 2008, 837 Lao Hmong and on 11 July 2008, a further 391 Lao Hmong were returned to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic from a camp in northern Thailand by the Thai Government. After weeks of protests, on 20 June 2008 about 4,500 to 5,000 Hmong individuals left the Ban Huay Nam Khao camp in the Phetchabun Province and marched towards Bangkok. However, according to the information, when the group reached a few miles from the camp, they were confronted by Thai troops and were told that they must either return to the camp or be returned to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Some 3,500 individuals returned to the camp. However, about 1,300 Lao Hmong are now unaccounted for and the details surrounding their whereabouts are vague. On 22 June, following the march, some 837 Hmong individuals were repatriated to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic from the Ban Huay Nam Khao camp and an additional 400 were repatriated on 11 July."


STP, October 2006, p. 5
"Another cause for great concern is the fate of a group of 26 Hmong refugees – including 20 young women aged between 12 and 16 years old, according to the Lao Human Rights Council – who were forcibly sent back from Thailand to Laos in December 2005. According to reports received by the Society for Threatened Peoples (SfTP) the young women are still detained in various prisons and military camps, where they are cut off from the outside world have been brutally treated andraped. The male members of the group are said to have been taken to a remote prison in northern Laos and two youths have reportedly been shot and killed."


FIDH & MLDH, 2 January 2005, p. 10
"From 1990 to the end of 2001, more than 20.000 Laotians, who had previously taken refuge in Thailand and in China during the 1975 exodus, were repatriated to Laos in the frame of a program supervised by the LDPR and the UNHCR. These refugees, who were repatriated to a regime from which they fled as they could not find a host country, were settled in more than 40 sites located in 11 of the 18 Lao provinces.
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