Human rights abuses in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon
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A number of human rights abuses against South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians occurred in the period following South Vietnam's unconditional surrender to the forces of North Vietnam on April 30, 1975 known as the fall of Sàigòn.
The North Vietnamese rounded up former Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldiers, members of the former government, citizens that had held jobs connected to the United States government, and Catholics who pledged loyalty to Rome. They were sent to reeducation camps as prisoners of war (POWs), located throughout unified Vietnam that were designated by the government in Hànội. Various estimates have been given for the many thousands of deaths which occurred in those camps, as well as the number of "boat people" who died attempting to escape the poverty of a war torn nation.
The last of South Vietnamese officer POWs were released from reeducation camps in the late-1980s.
In The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the new communist government sent many people who supported the old puppet government in the South to "re-education camps", and others to "new economic zones." An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned as prisoners of war.[1] 165,000 people died in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's re-education camps, according to published academic studies in the United States and Europe.[1] Thousands were abused or tortured: their hands and legs shackled in painful positions for months, their skin slashed by bamboo canes studded with thorns, their veins injected with poisonous chemicals, their spirits broken with stories about relatives being killed.[1]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Millions of lives changed forever with Saigon's fall. Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma (2001-04-29).