Migrant Journeys

Jan 30, 2025

On a recent visit to South America, Fr Alo Connaughton spoke to two men about their experiences as migrants. In Peru, Columban missionary Fr Nguyen Xuan Tien shared about his journey from his home in Vietnam to Australia where he joined the Columbans. In Chile, Mariano shed light on the challenges migrants face.  

Fr Tien from Vietnam

On 30th April 1975 the army of North Vietnam captured Saigon and brought the Vietnam War to an end. Nguyen Xuan Tien was just 11 years old. His father’s shop, where all kinds of musical instruments were repaired, went into decline. The future was not bright under the new Communist regime for a staunchly Catholic family like his.

Young Tien suffered from asthma which needed treatment. When he was 15 his father suggested to him that he join some of the ‘boat people’ that were trying to make the journey from Vietnam to another country. The family managed to get the necessary amount of gold together; the smugglers would take nothing else.

Ready to embark on the journey he waited near a beach for some days before he was caught by the police and imprisoned for 14 weeks. On release he was not allowed to return to school, so he worked with his father for the next three years.

At the age of 18 he received an order from the military to present himself for service. This would mean going to war in Cambodia and the strong possibility of death. He decided to make another attempt at escape. Because of the family’s situation his father asked him to try and take his three younger brothers with him, 15-year-old Duc and eleven-year-old twins Thinh and Phat.

Once again gold had to be found. “With 45 other people we hid in a house not far from the river. At a given sign, at about 2am in the morning, we had to start running across the fields to a boat.” Tien carried one of the frightened twins on his back and another escapee carried the second twin.

At the river there was chaos as people who had not paid tried to climb aboard. They were not allowed to bring anything with them because, if the boat was searched by police, they had to appear to be locals just crossing the river. The transfer eventually took place to a bigger boat, about twelve metres long by two and a half metres wide, and the journey began for the 49 hopefuls. It lasted two weeks during which time they endured four or five typhoons.

Fr Alo Connaughton at the Columban Migrant Centre in Santiago with Mariano (first from right) and other migrant men from Colombia and Venezuela.

Food rations comprised one small fistful of uncooked rice in the morning and evening and half a cup of water from a rusty tank. That along with a frequently stormy sea made for plenty of sea sickness. On the twelfth day a large trawler from Thailand gave them cooked fish, rice and water and more importantly, corrected their course making it possible for them to reach Malaysia in a day.

Once there they were surrounded by soldiers and later handed over to the Red Cross. They were all then transferred to a holding camp for refugees on the Island of Bidong. This was to be ‘home’ for the next year. Life was fairly tough, Tien says, and food and water were not plentiful. It was a deserted place. Some young people tried to supplement their diet by fishing in the sea. The group supported each other, to keep their spirits up. They did their best to improve their English and the Christians prayed together every day.

Eventually, a sister of Tien, who had managed to get to Australia in 1981, was in a position to sponsor the three brothers and they were accepted as immigrants in Australia in 1983. In spite of having little money Tien was able to do three more years of secondary school. Then he found his way to the Columban seminary in Australia.

He was ordained a Columban priest on 24 June 1995, the anniversary of his escape from Vietnam. Today he is parish priest of three parishes in the Archdiocese of Tokyo in Japan. One of his twin brothers is now Bishop Thinh Xuan Nguyen of the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

In the kitchen of the Columban Migrant Centre in Santiago.

Mariano from Venezuela

The only name he gave me was Mariano. I met him in the Columban Migrant Centre in Macul, a suburb of Santiago, Chile. He is from Venezuela; one of the eight million Venezuelans that have left the country over the last 20 years or so because of the political and economic situation. Mariano walked to Chile from Venezuela; he didn’t say if he got an occasional lift. The distance from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela to Santiago is about 5,600 miles by road.

“Tell me a bit of your story,” I invited. “My big hope is to be able to get a job, earn some money and return home. I have a wife and three small daughters.” What happened to reduce him to the situation he is in now? “I had a fairly good clothes stall in the market. The people were poor, so I used to let them pay me in instalments.

Then overnight there was a 50% devaluation of our money. So the person who owed me, say 100, might still pay me back the 100 but now it was worth only half of what the item cost me. I went broke. I had no option but to try to find some other way to support my family. I’d love to be able to earn some money here and go home soon to help them.”

Fr Alo Connaughton is originally from Ballinacree, Co Meath. He was a missionary in Chile from 1974 to 1993 and then worked as the Editor of Far East magazine. He later served in Myanmar from 2004 to 2007 and taught at Saengtham College, Bangkok until 2022.

First published in the January/February 2025 issue of the Far East magazine. Please subscribe and support Columban missionaries in their work with the most disadvantaged. Just €10 for a digital edition and €20 for print. See: https://columbans.ie/far-east-magazine/

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