TRANSLATION
Article from the General-Anzeiger, 24 January 1980
Vietnam Refugees are being ill-treated in England's Crown Colony
(Caption: For many Boat People there is a rude awakening when they
are put into Hong Kong's refugee camps after weeks at sea. Ill-
treatment and insufficient medical care await them)
Severe Criticism of Hong Kong's Aid for the Boat People
Hong Kong (own report)
When the ASEAN states sealed off their coastlines against the
never-ending tide of Vietnam refugees crossing the sea in their
fragile boats last summer, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong
opened its ports. Hong Kong was deluged with praise and held
a bulwark of western humanitarian principles. But the
first criticism was voiced in September. Observers in the eleven
reception camps, which today hold about 70,000 refugees, reported
doubts about the genuineness of the humanitarian motives.
up as
The storm of indignation started in the Chimawan camp, previously a prison for dangerous criminals. A 21/2 -year-old boy had been
smuggled past the prison guards and brought to a Hong Kong hospital.
Doctors and nurses diagnosed severe malnutritition. A Canadian
doctor, Dr. Howard Owens, entered the boy's weight on the medical
record card as 20 pounds, about half the weight of a healthy child.
In the transit camp set up in the dockyard of Hong Kong harbour,
a two-year-old girl died of a raging fever. Members of a voluntary
organisation testified that the father, Au Duong Di, had tried in
vain for 22 days to have his daughter transferred to a hospital.
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