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Tourists may soon be barred from Batam ex-refugee camp used as COVID-19 hospital
Each month, about 6,000 people usually visit the 80-hectare former Vietnamese refugee camp. Most of them were once camp inmates who had become successful in their new countries.
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Buildings of the former Vietnamese refugee camp are left unattended in Galang Island, Batam, Riau Islands. Indonesia plans to turn the facility into a hospital for COVID-19 patients. (JP/Fadli)
T
ourists may no longer be able to visit a former Vietnamese refugee camp on Galang Island, Batam, Riau Islands because the government has built a hospital for COVID-19 patients on the site.
Each month, about 6,000 people usually visit the 80-hectare former refugee camp. Most of them were once camp inmates who had become successful in their new countries.
The camp's field coordinator, Said Adnan, said so far there had not been any official instruction to close the former refugee camp to tourists. However, he said tourists might no longer want to visit the camp since the government constructed a hospital for COVID-19 patients in the area.
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"Indonesian military commanders have visited the camp several times, but so far there has not been an order to close the camp to the public. We still have no idea whether there would be a special area designated for the hospital or not, but tourists would certainly be hesitant to visit the camp once the hospital starts operating," Said told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
The camp was used between 1975 and 1996 to house 250,000 Vietnamese refugees who fled their homeland in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
Read also: Police chief aims to persuade locals over COVID-19 hospital plan in Batam
More than 12 million South Vietnamese fled after the war ended and sought political asylum in countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia, but many were cast ashore on the islands of Indonesia.
Initially managed by the United Nations during the refugee crisis, Galang Refugee Camp is now under the management of the Batam Indonesia Free Trade Zone Authority (BP Batam). Said explained that in 2000, BP Batam turned the camp into a humanitarian tourist attraction.
"Former Vietnamese refugees visit the site regularly. Each year they came here several times in large groups," Said said.
He said at the end of 2019, about 200 former camp inmates held a reunion on the site. Such reunions have been organized since 2005, attended by hundreds of former refugees each time.
"They came here to visit the graves of their parents, families, or friends," he said. (nal)
