Below is an article published by Radio Free Asia:

A new group of 18 asylum-seeking Montagnards from Vietnam have taken refuge in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province amid fears they could be forcibly repatriated, a rights group and an ethnic Charai villager who is assisting them said Thursday, 29 January 2015.

The 18 Montagnards—Christian indigenous people from Vietnam’s Central Highlands—crossed the border into Cambodia on Jan. 28 [2015] from Vietnam’s Gia Lai province, said the villager, who spoke to RFA’s Khmer Service on condition of anonymity.

The latest group of 16 men and two women brings to 32 the total number of Montagnards currently hiding in Ratanakiri and who claim to be fleeing religious and political persecution in Vietnam. A total of four groups have entered the country this month [January 2015] alone.

“We are helping them hide and providing them with food, and we have already reported the situation to a local rights group to ask the U.N. to assist them in the forest,” the Charai villager said of the 18 new arrivals.

“Still, it is very difficult for me to help them alone. I am afraid that if they are arrested they will be [deported and] persecuted,” he said, calling on the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) to provide the group with protection as soon as possible.

One of the Montagnards who helped lead the group across the border told RFA by telephone that he and the others had fled from their village in Vietnam to avoid religious persecution by authorities seven months earlier [June 2014].

On Jan. 20 [2015], he gathered the 17 others and left Gia Lai, walking for some eight days before they came across Khmer villages, where they asked residents to pass their request for asylum on to the U.N.

“We are [Christian] worshipers—the Vietnamese authorities stopped us from practicing Christianity,” he said.

“They had threatened to imprison us.”

Vietnam's communist government says it respects the freedom of belief and religion, but religious activity remains under state control.

Chhay Thy provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, confirmed that the 18 Montagnards were hiding in Ratanakiri and urged the Cambodian government to adhere to its obligations under the U.N. Refugee Convention.

He cited local villagers as saying “there will be more refugees” crossing the border going forward, referring to additional Montagnards from Vietnam.

The Phnom Penh Post on Thursday cited a U.N. officer, who asked not to be named, as saying they were aware of the latest arrivals, but that the U.N. was “advocating and negotiating” with the government to deal with the issue.

The 18 Montagnards form the second group hiding in Ratanakiri after a group of five arrived earlier this month and was joined by nine others who crossed the border on Jan. 17 [2015]. The two groups are hiding in separate locations.

Sixteen Montagnards are currently applying for asylum under U.N. protection in Phnom Penh. One group of 13 emerged from nearly two months in the jungle on Dec. 20 [2014] and a second group of three traveled directly to the capital after crossing the border on Jan. 26 [2015].

Authorities have also deported nine Montagnards—seven who were sent back to Vietnam on Jan. 24 [2015[] and another two who were returned earlier this month [January 2015] after accidentally wandering across the border, according to police.

The Cambodian government denies sending any refugees or asylum seekers back home.

National Police spokesman Kiet Chantharith told RFA Thursday that the seven returned to Vietnam over the weekend “were not refugees.”

He said the seven were “regular Vietnamese Charai villagers who lost their way and accidentally entered Cambodian territory,” so authorities sent them back home.

Cambodian villagers who had with the seven also told RFA they were not refugees.

The Montagnards are an indigenous group concentrated in Vietnam’s Central Highlands made up of about 30 hill tribes, including the Charai.

Although a population of Charai lives in Ratanakiri, most members of the ethnic group live in Vietnam’s Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces. All Vietnamese Charai are considered Montagnards.

Early in the last decade, thousands in the Central Highlands staged violent protests against religious controls and the confiscation of their ancestral lands, prompting a brutal crackdown by Vietnamese security forces that saw hundreds of Montagnards charged with national security crimes.

Representatives of the minority group have said they are only calling for indigenous land rights and basic human rights in Vietnam, despite attempts by Hanoi to link them to overseas separatist groups.

Below is an article published by Voice of America:

Cambodian rights workers say police in remote Ratanakiri province have arrested five Montagnard asylum seekers from neighboring Vietnam.

The arrests were made Sunday night, 1 February 2015, in the jungle, where a group of Montagnards has been in hiding.

Chhay Thy, local coordinator for the Phnom Penh-based rights group Adhoc, told VOA Khmer he does not know the current whereabouts of the detainees.

“We see that this arrest was a serious violation of human rights and 1951 convention on refugees," he said.

He added that 27 Montagnards remain in hiding in the forest.

Last week [the last week of January 2015], Adhoc accused police of deporting seven asylum seekers without a proper hearing.

Police officials, however, say they are not arresting Montagnards but are deporting illegal immigrant farmers from Vietnam.

“There is no Montagnards," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said via translator. "Adhoc rights group will have to clarify this issue, otherwise we will sue [them] for serving political purposes."

The Montagnards, many of whom are Protestant, are indigenous to the highlands of Vietnam, where they have long claimed persecution for their religious beliefs and aid of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War.

The ethnic minority group has stirred political tensions in the past. Thousands fled to Cambodia in 2001 and 2001, but many were rounded up and returned to Vietnam, although some eventually were given asylum in the United States and other Western countries.