- Title: CAMBODIA: NAVAL FLOTILLA REPATRIATES VIETNAM REFUGEES
- Date: 14th May 1970
- Summary: No available shotlist Initials jt/vs/ac Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 29th May 1970 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PHNOM PENH
- Country: Cambodia
- Reuters ID: LVA6ENUVTPQ15WT74D2AAE0D8WGN
- Story Text: Thousands of Vietnamese refugees, clutching their few meagre possessions, streamed aboard South Vietnamese navy ships in Phnom Penh yesterday (Wednesday) to leave the land which has been their home for many generations.
South Vietnamese sailors formed human chains to hand babies down to the ships and carried old people, some with their life's possessions or all they could salvage in cloth bundles and ??? baskets, down the steep gangplanks.
Other young sailors helped refugees settle down below decks on the hard steel decks of the big tank landing ships and handed out tins of sardines, bread and concentrated milk.
Most of the Vietnamese, fearing persecution in troubled Cambodia, were losing everything they owned in the move.
The round up of Vietnamese civilians by the Phnom Penh Government follows fears that many have pro-Viet cong sympathies, and that some are actually fifth column workers inside cambodia.
The Vietnamese refugees relief delegation in Phnom Penh estimates there are 60,000 refugees in the city, while the Cambodians estimate there are 20,000.
The boarding operation went smoothly under the sole control of the South Vietnamese navy, while Cambodian military police kept crowds back from the entrance to the riverside wharves.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None