A group of Vietnamese boat people with 'SOS' painted on their faces in protest at Hong Kong's deportation programme were carried on to chartered aircraft at Kai Tak airport yesterday for repatriation. Some of the failed asylum-seekers, many of them women, locked arms in a display of passive resistance while others refused to move and were carried on to the aircraft by police. A total of 214 people were placed on two flights to Hanoi under the Government's Orderly Repatriation Programme (ORP). A report released last night by independent monitors of the group's transfer from Victoria Prison to the airport said police used blankets to carry two of the more unruly boat people. One had his hands and feet tied. About 44 people had to be carried on to the aircraft. Most of those deported yesterday arrived in Hong Kong in 1988 and 1989. They brought to 4,804 the total number of people repatriated on ORP flights since November 1991. About 14,000 boat people are still in Hong Kong and, according to a decree by China, must be repatriated before next year's handover. Editorial - Page 20
