Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Vietnam gets final set of remains
Victims died in truck trying to reach Britain
DO THANH, Vietnam — The last remains of the 39 Vietnamese who died while being smuggled in a truck to England last month were repatriated Saturday to their home country.
Photos by the official Vietnam News Agency showed the arrival at the Hanoi airport of 16 bodies and seven urns, which had been flown from London.
They were loaded into ambulances on a foggy morning for a trip to their hometowns in several provinces in northern and central Vietnam.
The bodies were found Oct. 23 in the English town of Grays, east of London. Police said the victims were between ages 15 and 44. No cause of death has been established, but the circumstances suggested asphyxiation.
The 31 men and eight women are thought to have paid human traffickers for their transit into England. Several suspects have been arrested in the U.K. and Vietnam.
Shortly after noon Saturday, the body of one victim, 19-year-old Bui Thi Nhung, arrived at Phu Tang church in the village of Do Thanh.
More than 100 Catholic villagers and family members waited for the body’s arrival at a highway. They held white flowers, standing by the side of the road as the ambulance carrying the body passed.
Nhung’s coffin was placed in the living room of the one-story house, with the family weeping by the sides. Relatives and neighbors came into the home to place incense.
A funeral will be held for Nhung at her home Sunday, followed by a ceremony at the church before the burial.
The impoverished villages the victims hailed from have largely been left out of the economic development that has turned urban centers in Vietnam such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi into boom towns, sending many on a risky journey looking for a better life abroad.