No punishment or mistreatment were imposed on ethnic minority people from the Central Highlands who have previously fled illegally to Cambodia, said an US diplomat on February 5. 

Ellen Sauerbrey, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, made the remarks during a meeting with the press in Hanoi regarding her 6-day visit to Vietnam which began on January 31. 

Sauerbrey said all the seven people she has met and talked to, without government officials' presence, affirmed they were not mistreated or punished when they returned to Vietnam. 

The returnees said they were happy to come home and their lives have not been changed since then, she said, adding that these people had no obvious goals to flee the country, they simply followed others. 

The US diplomat affirmed that the Government of Vietnam has adopted an open policy for organisations and individuals to come to the Central Highlands and directly meet or talk to the returnees. 

Sauerbrey, on her first visit to Vietnam, revealed that she was impressed by the encouraging results of her visit and by the enthusiasm of the Vietnamese people, saying that she witnessed a robust growth of the country. (VNA)