Becoming a Living Hell
In 1994, tension rose to a peak among the Vietnamese refugees as the UNHCR was unable to guarantee their future. Many refugees went on hunger strike. They demanded clear decisions on what was going to happen to them: whether they qualified as refugees and which countries they would be sent to.
Many refugees were disappointed at the results of the screening that was carried out to determine whether they qualified as refugees. This was crucial to deciding whether they would be sent to third countries or whether they would be deported back to Vietnam.
Many of them failed to qualify as refugees. One of the reasons, according to the UNHCR, was that some of them had criminal records back in Vietnam. The thought of going back to Vietnam, however, caused great distress among the boat people.
Eventually the horror of suicide began in Galang Camp.
On September 2, 1996, the tragic mass suicide ensued. The UNHCR decided to close down the refugee camp and deported the remaining refugees to Vietnam as no third countries were willing to accept them. More cases of suicide were listed below.
Third countries, particularly the United States, the third main choice after Canada and Australia, were selective in accepting Vietnamese refugees. One of the main requirements was that they must have certain skills, and be clever and rich. This is a ridiculous criteria for considering the torn-out refugees in the camp who were mostly common folks.
There are 503 graves of Vietnamese boat people here and most of these people committed suicide because they refused to be deported back to Vietnam. Anybody can feel their sadness. They shouted in despair and many of them cut their own throats just like slaughtering chickens.
Tragic Suicide in Galang Camp
Life broke down after much tremors happened in the camp. The Vietnamese people, though brave and courageous who left their homes and explored new life aboard, they were human after all. The stress of losing their close family members, relatives, friends and hope, led some of them to destruction. Murder and suicide attempts were as high as the number of rapes. Suffering in such a living hell, plus the rejection from the screening process that shattered their hope of survival, pushed these poor people further into fire.
The following lists several suicide cases chronologically which are only a tip of the iceberg; many other tragedies would have gone unreported.
- The most tragic was in 1985 when young Tinhnhan Loai was raped by seven compatriots. She committed suicide. In her memory, the UNHCR built a Humanity Statue at that location.
- On August 30, 1991, Trịnh Kim Hương, 28, burned herself alive after being denied refugee status in Galang camp.
- On April 12, 1992, Nguyễn Văn Quang, a corporal in the First Airborne Battalion of South Vietnam, hanged himself in Galang camp, after his refugee status was denied and his appeal rejected. He left behind a widow and three young orphans.
- On August 27, 1992, Trịnh Anh Huy, 20, committed self-immolation in front of UNHCR¡¦s office in Galang Camp. It was said that his last words before he killed himself was like this: ¡¥The lawyer¡¦s statement during screening had me live in terror. It pushes me closer and closer to death.
- On April 26, 1994, Phạm Văn Châu, a Vietnamese veteran, burned himself alive in Galang Camp. He died two days later.
- On May 20, 1994 Lê Xuân Thọ, 28, slashed his stomach and set himself afire. He died of severe burns.
- On September 2, 1996, the final date of the return of the remaining 5,000 refugees back to their home country-since there were no more governments willing to offer asylum-the suicide attempts reached their peak. Many were too scared to return to their homeland and chose to end their lives instead. Suicide victims therefore dominate the 503 graves (three of them were Cambodian nationals)
More than 6,000 boat people, however, were forced to return because they were not considered victims of political or religious persecution. Out of these 6,000, the number of people who killed themselves was kept in low profile, hence was not exactly known.
A tour guide called Mohammad Yono said approximate hundreds of refugees committed suicide by hanging themselves or throwing themselves into ravines after they were denied refugee status and faced forced repatriation.
“This place is haunted. Many ethnic Chinese have come here to get inspiration on lottery numbers from the spirits,” he said, pointing to a ravine where refugees were said to have killed themselves. Another rumour told by another local of Batam says that there existed one large burial hole, in which corpses of suicide were just dumped. Their names and deaths may not even been recorded officially.