HOLY SHIT!!!!
after 22 years, the Sikiew detention camp is still open... i was born there and nearly died there.
Camp Sikiew
THE RAID
In early morning June 29, 1996, several thousand (different estimates rangefrom 2,500 to 5,000) armed Thai military and police personnel surrounded Section A of Sikiew camp, which housed some 1,000 asylum seekers who refused to sign up for voluntary repatriation.
At 3:30 a.m., geared with truncheons and shields, Thai forces cut through the barbed-wire fences and entered Section A. Walls of soldiers surrounded the camp detainees. An officer read the list of people to be forcibly repatriated. The asylum seekers who had gathered at a protest site began reciting prayers. As Thai forces approached, several dozen boat people, including some women, slashed their stomach in protest. At least 30 people were brutally clubbed. One man, Nguyen Ngoc Chau, was beaten to death. His body was immediately taken away and has never been returned to his relatives for proper burial. (A second fatality was also reported but has not been confirmed.)=20
By 7 a.m., about 160 individuals, including the injured, were taken out of section A. Some had their injuries tended at the air-base and were carried onto the plane. The Thai confiscated everyone's belongings. Of the initial list of 100 individuals targeted for forced repatriation, a dozen were so
badly injured that they could not be moved to the air-base and was left at an emergency room. At around 10 a.m., Vietnam's Boeing 737 took off for Tan Son Nhat airport carrying 87 traumatized Vietnamese boat people back to the place they fled years ago.
Sixty seven others were taken to a special detention center in Bangkok where they remain locked up as prisoners to this date.
after 22 years, the Sikiew detention camp is still open... i was born there and nearly died there.
Camp Sikiew
THE RAID
In early morning June 29, 1996, several thousand (different estimates rangefrom 2,500 to 5,000) armed Thai military and police personnel surrounded Section A of Sikiew camp, which housed some 1,000 asylum seekers who refused to sign up for voluntary repatriation.
At 3:30 a.m., geared with truncheons and shields, Thai forces cut through the barbed-wire fences and entered Section A. Walls of soldiers surrounded the camp detainees. An officer read the list of people to be forcibly repatriated. The asylum seekers who had gathered at a protest site began reciting prayers. As Thai forces approached, several dozen boat people, including some women, slashed their stomach in protest. At least 30 people were brutally clubbed. One man, Nguyen Ngoc Chau, was beaten to death. His body was immediately taken away and has never been returned to his relatives for proper burial. (A second fatality was also reported but has not been confirmed.)=20
By 7 a.m., about 160 individuals, including the injured, were taken out of section A. Some had their injuries tended at the air-base and were carried onto the plane. The Thai confiscated everyone's belongings. Of the initial list of 100 individuals targeted for forced repatriation, a dozen were so
badly injured that they could not be moved to the air-base and was left at an emergency room. At around 10 a.m., Vietnam's Boeing 737 took off for Tan Son Nhat airport carrying 87 traumatized Vietnamese boat people back to the place they fled years ago.
Sixty seven others were taken to a special detention center in Bangkok where they remain locked up as prisoners to this date.
bettina:
That sounds awful! It's hard to imagine that places like that still exist. 
jill:
yummy indeeeeeeeeed 