Gold payment helps refugee
NZPA Singapore A Vietnamese who had been a Colombo Plan student in Wellington has paid out 10 ounces of gold to make her escape. from Saigon to meet her fiance at Wellington. At Singapore Airport this week, Lim Lee Sam, aged 32, an English teacher, spoke of how much she was looking forward to a meeting with her fiance, Denis Timmons, an anaesthetist.
“I met him when I was a student in Wellington under the Colombo Plan and he has been very good to me.” she said. “He has sponsored me into New Zealand and I am going there with two of my brothers. It is wonderful,” Seated among 50 refugees who had travelled with her from the Malaysian refugee camp of Pilau Bidong to the airport to board an Air New Zealand
flight to Auckland, Lim Lee Sam told of her escape to reach what is for her a land of promise. She said her mother had died several months ago and the remaining 11 members of her family and her father decided that she and two brothers should escape. The family motor-cycle business had been seized as well as their house. “The family sacrificed everything for us. My brothers and I had to pay 10 ounces of gold each to escape. I paid my gold to our boat captain.” Lim said her 22-year-old brother left their Saigon home a month before she and her 25-year-old brother. She traced the younger brother at the Pilau Bidong camp and he
“The family sacrificed everything for us. My brothers and I had to pay 10 ounces of gold each to escape. I paid my gold to our boat captain.” Lim said her 22-year-old brother left their Saigon home a month before she and her 25-year-old brother. She traced the younger brother at the Pilau Bidong camp and he changed an acceptance status for the United States to go to New Zealand with her.
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Press, 12 July 1979, Page 10
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326Gold payment helps refugee Press, 12 July 1979, Page 10
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