Vietnamese ‘Boat People’ Attempt to Reach Australia a Second Time

Three Vietnamese families returned by Australian authorities last year after they tried to illegally migrate there have fled Vietnam a second time by boat hoping to make it to Australia again, their lawyer said.

Attorney Vo An Don wrote on social media on Feb. 3 that the families of Tran Thi Thanh Loan, Tran Thi Lua and Tran Thi Phuc, comprising at least a dozen adults and at least seven children, left Vietnam on Aug. 31.

“At the moment, their boat has passed Indonesian waters and is heading to Australia,” Don wrote on his Facebook page.

All three families fled to Australia in 2015 but were returned to Vietnam the same year where some of them were sentenced to a total of six years in prison by a court in Binh Thuan province on Vietnam’s southeast coast, he said.

“If they are returned by Australia this time, Loan will face up to seven years in prison, and Lua will face six years in prison,” he said, meaning that they will have to serve the remainder of their existing sentences combined with new prison terms.

Full story: rfa.org

Reported by Mac Lam for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.