Tuesday, January 18, 2000
210 repatriated stowaways
face charges
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The mainland has accepted 210 stowaways back from Japan and is
planning to prosecute them for leaving illegally, state media
reported yesterday.
The group, mostly men from Fujian province, were repatriated on a
China-chartered flight from Nagasaki, China Daily said.
Border guards from the provincial capital, Fuzhou, said the
stowaways would be questioned and probably penalised, the paper
said.
The repatriation was the first from Japan this year, said Xinhua.
On January 8, the United States sent home 246 stowaways to the
province in a bid to stem the flow of people making the dangerous
journey to the West.
The stowaways had arrived in Japan in different groups and were
caught by Japanese police. They had been detained in Japan for three
to nine months before being sent back to China, the news agency
said.
Most of the stowaways to Japan came from the ports of Fuqing and
Changle. They ranged in age from 17 to 35. All but 57 were men.
It was unclear whether they had left the mainland by hiding
inside soft-top cargo containers aboard ocean-going ships, the
latest method used by smugglers.
A Fuzhou border patrol official was quoted by Xinhua as saying
the group of stowaways would be held at the Fuzhou City No 2
Detention Centre pending investigation.
They would be prosecuted for illegally crossing the border, the
official said.
In the past few weeks, several groups of mainland stowaways have
been found on board container vessels arriving on the west coast of
the United States and Canada, principally Washington state or
British Columbia.
Recently, three stowaways were found dead inside one of the
containers, which had been loaded on to a ship in Hong Kong.
Officials in the US are planning to launch a publicity campaign
on the mainland to discourage people from taking the risk. |