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National Geographic : 1979 Nov
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Hong Kong's Refugee Dilemma By WILLIAM S. ELLIS NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SENIOR WRITER Photographs by WILLIAM ALBERT ALLARD UT OF HAIPHONG they were, 182 of them crowded into a shameful boat that had run under sail before the southwest monsoon. For five weeks they had been at sea, and when the voyage came to an end, in the saffron glaze of a summer noonday in Hong Kong, no cheers were raised. None of that-not with the tight grip of sickness and fear on the bodies and souls of these people. It was in the eyes that the fear showed most, eyes that followed the approach of a marine police launch like radar locked in on a target. The warning given by an officer on the launch was but a formality. They were there illegally, he was obliged to say, and must depart Hong Kong waters. That done, he began the process whereby the British crown colony would become the first port of refuge for yet another group of "boat people" from Vietnam. All but one of the 182 were ethnic Chinese. They ranged in age from 70 years to the 3-month-old girl who lay in fitful sleep while her mother whipped the sultry air around the infant's head with a fan. The boat was no more than 60 feet long and 15 feet wide. To raise an arm was to commit an act of rudeness; such Citizen of nowhere: An old woman awaits asylum at Hong Kong's Govern ment Dockyard TransitCentre, where a tide of humanity overwhelms a ware house (overleaf). She is among nearly 300,000 "boat people," mostly ethnic Chinese, who by last summer had successfully fled from persecution in Viet nam. Streaming into SoutheastAsian ports, the homeless hoped for resettle ment wherever compassion might be found. And compassion was found. A United Nations conference inJuly won pledges of help from aroundthe globe - and Vietnam's promise thatit would considermeasures to ease the problem. 709 Across the harbor and a world away, the white towers of Hong Kong beckon from the businessheartof the Britishcrown colony, but lie beyond the reachof refugees con fined to the dockyard camp. Some, like these, lived packed aboardboatsforweeks. Yet National Geographic,November 1979
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