Photo:AP Photo/Hau Dinh The village of Dien Thinh bid farewell last week to two of its sons, victims of a human trafficking tragedy unveiled last month when the bodies of 39 Vietnamese were discovered in a truck in England.
Coffins with the bodies of cousins Nguyen Van Hung and Hoang Van Tiep were carried to the village’s Trung Song church for a funeral attended by about 300 people.
“Nguyen Van Hung and Hoang Van Tiep left their hometown to find a better future for themselves and for their families,” Fr Pham Tri Phuong said. “But the tragedy happened that brought grave pain to the family and for all of us.”
The 31 men and eight women, aged between 15 and 44, are believed to have paid human traffickers to smuggle them to England. Their bodies were found east of London on October 23, and while no cause of death has been officially established, the circumstances suggested asphyxiation.
Funerals
The bodies of 16 of the victims, including Hung and Tiep, arrived in Vietnam last Wednesday and were sent on to their families. At least four funerals were held Thursday.
In Dien Thinh, a rural village of about 300 households on the coast of north-central Vietnam, they mourned not just the deaths, but also the circumstances.
“How can we not be in great pain when seeing their aging parents have to bid farewell to their young children,” Fr Phuong told mourners. “How can we be not in great pain to see our brothers who had to suffer such a way of dying in a place so far from home.”
Dien Thinh, like many villages in Vietnam, have largely been left out of the economic development that has turned urban centers like Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi into boom towns.
Many people in this largely Catholic village survive on small-scale farming of crops such as peanuts and sesame, supplemented by seasonal fishing. But there are others who have taken the chance and moved abroad in the hopes of bettering the lives of themselves and their families.