-On 30 April 1975, the Vietnam War ended with the evacuation of the American Embassy and the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese Army.

-Millions of people tried to flee the new Communist rule in Vietnam. In May 1975, the first boat with 47 refugees arrived in Malaysia from Vietnam. They were called “boat people.”

-However, the number of boat people fleeing Vietnam was relatively small until 1978. Bidong Island was officially opened as a refugee camp on 8 August 1978 with 121 Vietnamese refugees.

-The capacity of the camp was said to be 4,500. Another 600 refugees arrived in August and thereafter the arrival of boats from Vietnam was a near daily occurrence.

-By January 1979, there were 18,000 Vietnamese on the island and by June 1979 it was said to be the most heavily populated place on earth with about 40,000 refugees crowded into a flat area hardly larger than a football field

-The arrival of new refugees to Bidong and other locations in Southeast Asia decreased after June 1979.

-A Geneva Convention held in July 1979 resulted in Vietnam agreeing to restrain the flow of refugees and the Southeast Asian countries agreeing to take all those who came to their shores provided that the Western countries guaranteed resettlement for the majority of them.

-By the time Bidong was closed as a refugee camp on 30 October 1991, about 250,000 Vietnamese had passed through or resided in the camp.

-With the closing of the camp, the remaining refugees in Malysia were repatriated back to Vietnam. The refugees strongly protested their forced repatriation. A total of 9,000 Vietnamese were repatriated between 1991 and 28 August 2005 when the last refugees departed for Vietnam.

-In 1999, the island was opened to tourism.

shouldve let some of them stayed. overseas vietnamese are some of the most hnngghh asians i have ever seen. imagine if they stayed here.

No, if they stayed here, they'll be fat and unattractive like us. Commie exercise and diet did them well.

I heard when offered Malaysia many refused and only want to go countries like Australia and US

Too bad, no vietmoi for /k...

Nobody remember the camp in sg besi one?

only poor ones made it here to malaysia..

middle class and above all already made it to US/EU.

What's with sg besi?

France also got many viets.. maybe because France was their colonial mastee

ironic today malaysia is filled with vietnamese worker .

Sg besi also got vietnam camp back in the day

yeah.. i used to roam around paris and found lots of vietnamese operated restaurant masquerade as chinese restaurant..

Story here please

kampung malaysia?

One thing is weird about vietnam is that their classic dish banh mi is actually a sandwich.

That's so unlike the rest of us asian. More like western already

i remember watching sg besi camp full of viet in long houses. kids nowadays know nothing

This post has been edited by jenal69: Oct 30 2019, 09:30 AM

probably some of it was originated from vietnam

every s.e.a. country has their own traditional dish

Another camp , its presently Bukit Jalil/ Technology Park area.

3 countries which accepted the largest numbers of Vietnamese boat people:
USA
Australia
France

now pulau bidong is a decent diving spot