Stranded refugees threaten suicide

Press, 28 December 1978, Page 4

Stranded refugees threaten suicide

NZPA-Reuter Hong Kong A spokesman for 2700 Vietnamese refugees stranded in a Taiwanese-owned freighter said yesterday that they “just might all jump into the sea in a mass suicide” if Hong Kong did not let them land.

The refugee, a teacher from Ho Chi Minh City, told NZPA-Reuter by radio telephone: “It’s a living hell on board the (freighter) Huey Fong. Babies and children are crying all day and night R/od is extremely short.” The freighter was en rtute from Bangkok to the south Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung when she stopped outside Hong Kong on Saturday. The British authorities have supplied provisions and airlifted nine refugees to hospital, but have refused to let the others land as Hong Kong was not the ship’s first port of call.

A mother and her two children from the freighter were airlifted to a hospital yesterday, a Government spokesman reported. The Government said the conditions of the latest three victims were not known. Hospital authorities refused to say from what illness they were suffering. A refugee, who gave his name as Nguyen Thi Trinh, said, “People here are very depressed and they are getting desperate with the passing of every hour. “I don’t know what they will do if they are shut out completely. I think we just might all jump into the sea for a mass suicide." He said that two babies died aboard the Panamanianregistered Huey Fong on her journey across the South China Sea, and an old man committed suicide by jumping overboard. Some of the Vietnamese “boat people," speaking in a

radio interview with a Hong Kong television station earlier, threatened to kill the Taiwanese captain and themselves if the ship sailed away. Captain Chu Hsin-wen also told the “South China Morning Post,” “If I start the engines, my life is in danger.” The captain, asked yesterday about the reported threats, declined to give any details. But he did say that he had cabled Taiwan, asking the Nationalist Chinese island to accept his human cargo. He has received no reply yet.

In Taipei, informed sources close to the Nationalist Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission have said the chances of Taiwan accepting them are slim. About 2400 of the refugees are ethnic Chinese.

A refugee spokesman said more than half the 2700 Vietnamese in the ship were either “sick or totally exhausted.”

“Some of them can hardly walk, others cannot talk, and others vomit all the time," Yaun Lai-wan said, in a radio-telephone interview. He said that even the captain was in bed. exhausted. Even if Taiwan authorities agreed to accept the refugees, the ship would not leave Hong Kong.

“Under present conditions nobody can stand that kind of voyage. All of us will die en route,” he said.

He emphasised that the refugees did not intend to stay in Hong Kong forever since almost 98 per cent of

them had relatives and friends in countries such as the United States, Canada, France, and Australia. “We just want to land in Hong Kong for a breathing space before going to other countries,” he said. “I just don’t understand the attitude of the Hong Kong Government.”

Unconfirmed reports have reached Hong Kong that further flotillas of ships were heading for Hong Kong. Journalists who have interviewed hundreds of refugees in recent weeks in Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong said they pondered now the truth of rumours that refugees intended to make Hong Kong their prime destination. Reports that this was likely swept refugee camps on the Asian peninsula before Christmas. The reason given was the usually sympathetic attitude voiced by the British Government towards refugees and Hong Kong’s reputation as a haven for the homeless.

The colony’s marine police have been placed on an alert to watch for further flotillas of refugee boats. Macao authorities turned away junks carrying about 100 refugees. Captain Chu said he had picked up the refugees in the ship from nine junks in the South China Sea off Danang. But mystery still surrounds the question of whether the “pick-up” was arranged. The refugees said they had bribed their way out of Vietnam and pooled their resources to obtain the junks.