At least 60 Vietnamese escape from a casino in Cambodia

A group of 60 Vietnamese fled from a casino in Bavet city, in Cambodia's Svay Rieng province on Saturday.

Another four were caught by the casino’s guards, Vietnam’s state-controlled media reported, citing the Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia.

 

On Saturday afternoon, a video clip spread on social media showing dozens of Vietnamese workers fleeing in the rain from the casino at Bavet Kandal Hamlet in Bavet. The city is near a border gate leading to Vietnam’s Moc Bai gate in Tay Ninh province

 

On hearing the news, the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh contacted the Cambodian authorities to find out the facts. 

It asked Cambodian authorities to get involved in rescuing the remaining Vietnamese citizens in the casino, help verify people’s identities and repatriate them, according to local media.

 

Later the same day the Cambodian Police asked the casino to release 11 more Vietnamese nationals. Media reports said the police were still interviewing the group.

 

This is the second mass breakout of Vietnamese from a casino in Cambodia in the space of a month.

On August 18, more than 40 Vietnamese broke out of a Chinese-managed casino in Cambodia’s Kandal province and swam across the Binh Di River to An Giang province in Vietnam.

 

Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had helped bring about 600 Vietnamese citizens back home since the beginning of the year.

It said they went to work in Cambodia with the promise of "light work, high salary" but were later exploited, abused, beaten and asked to call their relatives to receive ransom money so that they could return home.

 

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