**Thailand has begun deporting a group of about 4,000 ethnic Hmong back to communist Laos, despite international concerns for their safety.**Thai officials said unarmed soldiers began closing a camp for Hmong refugees in northern Phetchabun province.
Thailand describes them as economic migrants. The Hmong say they face persecution in Laos because they sided with US forces during the Vietnam war.
The UN had urged the Thais to call off plans to deport them.
Col Thana Charuvat, who is co-ordinating the repatriation, said about 5,000 soldiers, officials and civilian volunteers had entered the camp in Huay Nam Khao village on Monday morning.
“The operation started at 0530 (2230 GMT Sunday),” he told reporters. “The operation is expected to take one day.”
He said the soldiers are unarmed although equipped with shields and batons.
Col Thana said the Hmong were being taken to a nearby staging area where they would be put on buses which would take them to the Thai border town of Nong Khai and then across to Laos.
Their destination in Laos is Paksane district in the central province of Bolikhamsai, he added.
Journalists and other outside groups have not been allowed into the camp.
Sunai Phasuk, a Thai member of Human Rights Watch, said mobile phone signals inside the camp had been jammed so no-one could call out.
Rights groups fear the Hmong will resist the deportation, as they have during smaller-scale repatriations.
“If the Hmong resist it and there is an eruption of violence, the army may react in full force,” he said.
The US has raised the issue of the Hmong many times with Bangkok, most recently last week during the visit of a senior State Department official.
Nine US senators sent a letter to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to express concern about the repatriation plan and criticised the government’s screening process to determine refugee status.