Refugee Camps
Those who survived their journeys were captured, detained and strained in many refugee camps, most of the later in the remote islands, for years before they could be re-settlement in another country. Some had gone under the hard screening process only then finally being sent back to Vietnam.
My Experience with Refugees from Vietnam
By: Henry Ku My experience with the Vietnamese Diaspora began in 1975. On 30 April 1975, the South Vietnamese government collapsed and Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army. People scrambled to get out. The world witnessed on TV the tragic and mad scramble to get...
Vietnamese Artists
Working with Vietnamese refugees in Galang camp in Indonesia was one of the most memorable experiences of my 16 years career with UNHCR. From 1991 to 1993, I was the Technical Officer…
The Fly Island
Kuku was on this isolated island that, thirty years ago, I transformed from a teenager to an adult more or less overnight. My strength and my character grew as I learned to survive and protect my siblings under…
In Memory of Mong Ha
Late in the morning of 24 September 2009 our group arrived at Kuku, a deserted, jungle-covered Indonesian island where Vietnamese refugees found temporary refuge in the late 1970s and 1980s.
The Floating Prison
By: Jon Davison In 1979, the ‘Skyluck’, a 28 year old freighter, appeared overnight in Hong Kong packed full of Vietnamese refugees. The refugee camps were bursting at the seams and had nowhere to place them. The final outcome was not what anyone expected. In early...
Young and Happy
By: Mimi Woznicki I enjoyed my time in the Indonesian refugee camp immensely. I was twelve-years-old and didn’t have a care in the world. Every day for ten months I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and take a long walk along the beach collecting seashells and...
Compassion Fatigue
Talbot Bashall was Controller of the Refugee Control Centre that managed all the refugee camps in Hong Kong during the ‘Vietnam exodus’ years. He, more than anyone else, witnessed at first hand the vastness of this tragic exodus. He helped literally thousands of refugees to gain freedom. Talbot now resides in Perth, Western Australia.