Thailand: Waiting in Hope and Despair

Indochinese "residuals "find they have no place to go

The exodus of refugees from Indochina is a story of broken lives, broken dreams and broken promises. Since the fall of Saigon seven years ago, almost 500,000 boat people have passed through Southeast Asia to find new homes, mostly in the U.S., Western Europe and Australia. But an additional 175,000 refugees still languish in camps in Thailand. Because so many of them lack the skills deemed essential for resettlement elsewhere, they have come to be known in official jargon as "residuals," or people with "no guarantee of movement onward." The worst...