Vietnam hands over 9 Chinese nationals rescued at sea

The Chinese citizens boarded a China Southern flight from the Phu Quoc International Airport in the Mekong Delta’s Kien Giang Province at 11:45 a.m.

Late last month, Pham Xuan Hoang, a fisherman from Phu Quoc, saw a group of Chinese drifting at sea about 20 nautical miles (40 km) away from the shore.

The nine people rescued said they were originally 11 and that they were traveling from China’s Fujian Province to Cambodia when their ship sank in seas off Phu Quoc. The fate of the other two is not known.

Around the same time, a vessel carrying 41 Chinese nationals capsized off the coast of Cambodia’s Sihanoukville Province. 23 are missing. The 18 who were rescued by Cambodia said they’d begun their journey from China’s Guangdong Province. Water rushed into their ship and it sank about 30 nautical miles off Phu Quoc’s coast.

A week after the two incidents, seven bodies drifted on to the shores of Phu Quoc. Some of them had Chinese IDs in their wallets. Local authorities arranged funerals for the seven deceased and DNA samples were handed over to Chinese authorities.