World: Exodus on the Mekong

THE informal alliance between Saigon and Phnom-Penh has not tempered the bitter hostilities that have divided Cambodians and Vietnamese for centuries. Stung by the recent atrocities inflicted on the 500,000 ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia, the Saigon government has launched an effort to evacuate some of its vulnerable kinsmen. TIME Correspondent James Willwerth was aboard the Vung Tau, the lead LST in a fleet of 20 ships and small craft that last week carried 10,000 "refugees from their detention camps in Phnom-Penh 80 miles down the Mekong River to safety. His report:

All morning long, they clambered on board—crippled old men, bony...

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