Indochina refugee crisis

The Indochina refugee crisis was the large outflow of people from the former French colonies of Indochina, comprising the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, after communist governments were established in 1975. Over the next 25 years and out of a total Indochinese population in 1975 of 56 million, more than 3 million people would undertake the dangerous journey to become refugees in other countries of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, or China. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 250,000 Vietnamese refugees had perished at sea by July 1986.^[1] More than 2.5 million Indochinese were resettled, mostly in North America, Australia, and Europe. More than 525,000 were repatriated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, mainly from Cambodia.^[2]

The Indochinese refugees consisted of a number of different peoples, including the Vietnamese, the Sino-Vietnamese Hoa, Cambodians fleeing the Khmer Rouge and hunger, ethnic Laotians, Iu Mien, Hmong, other highland peoples of Laos, and Montagnard, the highland peoples of Vietnam. They fled to nearby countries to seek temporary asylum and most requested permanent resettlement in third countries. The refugee outflow and humanitarian crisis was especially acute in 1979 and 1980.

Reverberations of the Indochina refugee crisis continued into the 21st century. The last of the boat people were repatriated from Malaysia in 2005. Thailand deported 4,000 Hmong refugees in 2009.^[3]