BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — More than 60 self-exiled members of a Chinese Christian church who were detained in Thailand after receiving UN refugee status will be deported by next week, probably to a third country, officials said Wednesday.

Deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said representatives of Thailand’s Foreign Ministry and Immigration Bureau were holding talks with the UN Refugee Agency and the US Embassy to discuss the fate of the 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church who were taken to court in the coastal city of Pattaya last Friday.

“Within the next week, they will definitely be deported. What we don’t know is which country they will be deported to,” Surachate told The Associated Press.

The members of the church, also known as the Mayflower Church, were granted refugee status by the UN agency after their arrival in Thailand last year. They say they faced unbearable harassment in China and are seeking asylum in the United States.

Prior to their arrival in Thailand, the church members had fled to South Korea’s Jeju Island in October 2019 and stayed there for nearly three years, but decided to leave as it became clear that prospects for refuge there were dim.

An Immigration Bureau official with knowledge of Wednesday’s multi-agency discussions said the Thai authorities would “find a way” for the church members to be sent to a third country.

“The Immigration Bureau will continue to take care of them on humanitarian grounds in the meantime,” said the official, who spoke on the condition he not be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The church members expected to be released after being arrested and fined last week for overstaying their visas. Instead, they were driven by bus from Pattaya to a police detention facility in Bangkok for what a police officer said was normal processing.

Surachate said the church members have been separated, with “the mothers and children” — about half the group — sent to the Immigration Bureau’s care facility in northern Bangkok, while the others were being kept in the bureau’s main detention centre in central Bangkok.

In its annual report last year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said the Chinese Communist Party requires religious groups to support its rule and political objectives, including by altering their religious teachings to conform with the party’s ideology and policy. “Both registered and unregistered religious groups and individuals who run afoul of the CCP face harassment, detention, arrest, imprisonment, and other abuses,” the commission said.