N.Z. nuns safe after weeks with Viet Cong

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 1

N.Z. nuns safe after weeks with Viet Cong

f N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PHU CUONG, South Vietnam, February 26. Two New Zealand nuns whose safety has been in doubt since they went missing in early January in a Communist-controlled area of South Vietnam have returned to a district controlled by the Saigon regime.

They and their Chinese superior, Sister Lee, were captured by Communist troops as they walked through the jungle with other refugees after the fall of Phuoc Binh, 75 miles north of Saigon, early in January. Sister Lee is also free.

Sister Laurence said the Communist troops did not seem to know what to do with them. “They were very good to us really — they treated us very well.” The nuns had refused to leave the hill people and orphans among whom they worked when Phuoc Binh came under siege. The town fell after a heavy artillery barrage and tank assault on January 7, leaving all of Phuoc Long province under Communist control. The three nuns were brought to Phu Cuong, just north of Saigon, after being released by the Viet Cong and walking into Phu Giao, some 45 miles south of Phuoc Binh, yesterday. Townburning Phuoc Binh, the first provincial capital to fall since

the 1973 Paris peace accords, was in flames as the refugees left. It was hit by both Communist shelling and Government bombing. The nuns, who belong to the Notre Dame des Missions order, ran a mission which included a dispensary, school, and arts and crafts centre. Before the battle for Phuoc Binh, when the Government controlled the town and the Viet Cong much of the surrounding countryside, the nuns were able to move in security because they were known to both sides, according to, people who knew them. Sister Mary Laurence, aged 46, formerly of Hamilton, and Sister Mary Dorothy, aged 26, formerly of Ohope, were last reported about January 8 heading for Quang Due province with several hundred children and other refugees.

Sister Mary Laurence and Sister Mary Dorothy looked cheerful and healthy after seven weeks among the Viet Cong.

A refugee who later reached Saigon reported that they had been stopped by Communist forces as they were about to cross a river trying to get to Quang Due. Efforts to find out what had happened to the nuns since then have been unsuccessful. The New Zealand Embassy in Saigon tried every channel it could, and Viet Cong representatives in the South Vietnamese capital promised to make inquiries about the missing nuns. Sister Mary Laurence has been working with Vietnamese hill tribes for the last six years. Sister Mary Dorothy went to Vietnam last year after teaching in Taranaki.