WORLD : Hong Kong Defends Refugee Care

Hong Kong today rejected U.N. criticism that some of the 50,000 Vietnamese boat people here are living in conditions not fit for dogs.

A team of officials from the Geneva headquarters of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees warned that serious overcrowding will lead to fresh outbreaks of violence among frustrated inmates. “The space is less than the space given to people in prison here. It is even less than what is supposed to be given here for a dog,” Omar Bakhet, head of the commission’s technical support unit, said on local radio.

The British colony’s refugee coordinator, Mike Hanson, said, “I think the criticism is entirely unreasonable under the circumstances in which we are operating.”