A family of five Vietnamese Montagnards, including two children and an infant, who had fled their homes and crossed the border into Cambodia, were discovered in the Cambodian Ratanakiri jungle and arrested on 1 February.
Handcuffed, they were detained by police and taken to a secret location. No further news as to their whereabouts has yet been given.
Four different groups of ethnic Montagnards fled to Cambodia in January alone, the latest a large group of 18 Christians on 28 January. ‘We are [Christian] worshippers – the Vietnamese authorities stopped us from practising Christianity’ and ‘threatened to imprison us’, said one Vietnamese Montagnard in the latest group to flee.
Hiding in jungle
Nine had crossed the border on 17 January and five others had entered earlier in the month. The groups were hiding in the jungle in the north-eastern Ratanakiri province of Cambodia, afraid of being arrested and forcibly deported to Vietnam.
A mainly Christian people group, the Montagnards reside in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, but are persecuted for their Christian faith.
