Boat people

:This is an article about illegal immigrants travelling by boat. For people living on fishing boats, see Tanka (ethnic group).

Indochinese Boat People

Events resulting from the Vietnam War led many people in Cambodia, Laos, and especially Vietnam to become refugees in the late 1970s and 1980s. In Cambodia, the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime murdered millions, and many attempted to escape. In Vietnam, the new government sent many people who supported the old government in the south to "re-education camps" and others to "new economic zones". These factors, coupled with poverty, caused millions of Vietnamese to flee the country. In 1979, Vietnam was at war with the People's Republic of China (PRC), and many ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam who felt that the government's policies directly targeted them also became boat people. On the open seas, the boat people had to confront forces of nature and elude pirates. The plight of the boat people became a humanitarian crisis. The UNHCR, under the auspices of the United Nations, set up refugee camps in neighboring countries to process them and was awarded the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize for its work. Hong Kong adopted the "port of first asylum policy", and received the largest number of refugees. Many refugee camps were set up in its territories, and it had exerted financial pressure on the government. Most of these refugees resettled in the United States and Western Europe.

Related Topics:
Vietnam War - Cambodia - Laos - Vietnam - 1970s - 1980s - Khmer Rouge - People's Republic of China - Ethnic Chinese - Pirates - UNHCR - United Nations - Nobel Peace Prize - Hong Kong - United States - Western Europe

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By the mid-1990s, the number of refugees fleeing from Vietnam had dwindled down. Many refugee camps were closed down, and asylees voluntarily or forcibly repatriated, although a very small few were granted residency by the Hong Kong Government.

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