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Thursday, July 22, 1999

122 refugees experienced 'your worst nightmare'
Asians staying at base

Jeff Lee
The Vancouver Sun, with files from The Canadian Press

Nick Didlick, the Vancouver Sun
The 122 refugees who arrived in Canada aboard an unmarked boat were taken by school buses to Esquimalt naval base in Victoria at 2:10 a.m. yesterday. They will spend the next week sleeping on folding camp cots erected in the base's gymnasium.

VICTORIA - More than 100 would-be Chinese refugees arrived in Victoria yesterday after a 39-day Pan-Pacific trip that one federal official described as "your worst nightmare."

The 122 passengers, most of whom were probably being smuggled into the country, were aboard a decrepit ship, crammed into a hold that was unlivable, said Jim Redmond, an official with Citizenship and Immigration.

"Think of your worst nightmare in a ship and that would be it," he said yesterday at the Esquimalt naval base in Victoria where the migrants are being detained.

"The vessel was abysmal . . . The conditions on board were generally filthy, filthy. There was human waste throughout the hold area where the migrants were being forced to live."

The 40-metre unregistered ship, which had no discernable markings and no flag, was discovered by federal officials Tuesday off the western Vancouver Island coast.

The operation to unload the ship and ferry the would-be refugees to Victoria took place in the middle of the night, far from the view of the general public.

The process was complicated by the lack of bio-hazard suits available to officers until late Tuesday night. Shortly after 9 p.m. members of the RCMP Emergency Response Team from the Vancouver Island town of Courtenay dressed in white protective suits and carrying automatic rifles, boarded the ship.

RCMP Corporal Grant Learned said the officers were met with no resistance, and found no weapons. After medical officers from Health Canada determined that only two of the 122 aboard required medical assistance, the ship was taken under tow.

Shadowed by the Coast Guard cutter Tanu and the RCMP catamaran Higgit, the ship was towed into the Bowater pulp mill's deep-water port at Gold River, B.C., shortly after 1 a.m.

Officers on board the ship kept tight control of the passengers, warning them not to talk or move about without approval. At 2:10 a.m. the first of three school buses arrived, and the passengers were shepherded off five at a time and frisked for weapons. Some were handcuffed.

Mr. Redmond said RCMP and other officials have identified 11 passengers as the possible ringleaders of the smuggling operation. "We're keeping them as separate from the others as possible," he said.

Mr. Redmond said none of the migrants arrived with any identification, although some had sketchy cards that didn't reveal much.

Mr. Redmond said one person told a Mandarin interpreter he had paid $38,000 (US ) for the voyage.

"They were relieved to get on the bus on dry land," said Mr. Redmond, describing many of them as having "sea legs."

The passengers -- 104 men and 18 women -- appear to have come from Fuzhou in southern China, said Lieutenant-Commander Chris Henderson.

They arrived mostly healthy except for some hunger and dehydration. Some clapped as the buses pulled into the base.

They will spend the next week sleeping on 125 folding camp cots erected in the base's gymnasium.

Dining and sitting areas have been set up and the migrants were given food and showers when they arrived. They were given clean clothes and their own garments were put into quarantine, Mr. Redmond said.

Corporal Grant White, an officer from Courtenay, confirmed conditions on board the old ship were horrendous.

He said there were no bunks other than about 12 wooden berths near the galley, and sanitation facilities were virtually non-existent.

He described the smell of the ship as appalling and said the stench was cloying to his nostrils.

"It was like the smell of a dead body. I can still smell it in my nose."

Editorial, Page A19

 
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