On 21 May 1979 the British cargo ship Sibongo, on' a trading voyage between Bangkok and Hong Kong, answered distress calls from two small fishing boats crammed withsick,andhungry Vietnamese refugees. The hundreds of men, women and. children were taken on board, fed with the crew's rations and treated from the ship's small stock of medicines. The refugees became the centre of an international storm, as the Sibonga was detained outside Hong Kong and the boat people forbidden to leave the ship by the Hong Kong authorities without an undertaking from the British Government that they would be allowed into Britain.
Producer JENNYDE YONG long wave only