In Cambodia, stateless ethnic Vietnamese stuck at border amid Covid-19

Hundreds of ethnic Vietnamese families have been evicted from their homes at Cambodia’s Tonle Sap River

Activists say their health and rights are at risk amid rising Covid-19 cases on two sides of the border

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In Cambodia, hundreds of stateless ethnic Vietnamese are left in limbo. File photo: AP

Published: 6:00am, 5 Jul 2021Updated: 6:24am, 5 Jul 2021

Shunned by authorities on both sides of the border, Bach Bai has been relying on the generosity of strangers since his ethnic Vietnamese fishing community was evicted from Cambodia’s capital three weeks ago and cast off downstream on their floating homes.

But few are willing to help hundreds of stateless families, who had earned a living breeding fish and hosting tourists on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap River, and are now moored to a riverbank a few kilometres from Vietnam, desperate to be allowed inside.

“I was born on the Tonle Sap but I’m told Cambodia is no longer my home,” Bai said, squatting on the bow of his tiny vessel in Leuk Daek, about 100km south of Phnom Penh, as his three young children ate noodles and asked reporters for money.

“We have no money, no medicine and we are running out of rice … Vietnam, please, show mercy, allow your children to return to the motherland,” he said, after being turned back at the border about two weeks ago.

Some 15 million people worldwide, like Bai, are not recognised as citizens by any country and are increasingly vulnerable with the Covid-19 pandemic, as inequality grows between those with stable work and homes and those without.