Photograph by Sebastiao Salgado
After 30 years fighting between North and South, finally the Vietnam War ended. Many people who didn't follow Communism decided to flee Vietnam. "Boat people" were born. It is described that hundreds of people sat next to each other like fish in a can. They suffered the storm, the robbery, the rape repeatedly. They lost family members, relatives.
On Vietnamese boat people web page, many tragic stories from refugees were collected. A refugee told her own story: "Hours later, another boat appeared. When it got close to us, five men jumped on our boat and started searching again. They also took some clothes we were wearing. Then they told everybody look away, undressed two teenage girls and took turn raping them for hours. I was so terrified, held my son tightly in my arms and totally shook! We heard the girls cry for help, but we were helpless! What a shame!!! Later on, they left." I was so terrified by her story. As a Vietnamese person, I truly feel the pain as well as the emotion of those refugees.
This photograph was taken on the beach Of Vung Tau in 1995. Those people in the photo hold the faith of seeking happiness, the strength to overcome their fate. They had to survive, maintaining their lives to tell the world their tragedy and what hardship boat people endured. There were no more tears on their face, no more complaints. When the pain is too big, you will feel nothing at all.
Works Cited
Salgado, Sebastiao. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. 60-61.
this is an awesome post My! It is terrible that people have to suffer such things, and all in the search of a better life. Migration is a lot more than simply moving or relocating to a new country- it is a painful and dangerous sacrfice in the search of something better. I just don't understand how so many people from so many different countries can be in this posistion. You would think there has to be something we can do to help.
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