200 poisoned in schoolroom attacks in Vietnam
HANOI - More than 200 pupils and teachers have been
poisoned in a spate of chemical attacks on classrooms in
Vietnam's strife-torn central highlands, officials and
official media said on Friday.
The attacks targetted at least seven schools across three
districts of the highland province of Dak Lak between
Monday and Thursday, they said.
Thirty-two children were still in a "serious condition" in
the main specialist hospital in the provincial capital of
Buon Me Thuot Friday, the deputy chairman of the
province's child protection committee, Nguyen Quy Ba,
told AFP.
The victims had all suffered severe breathing problems as
well as headaches and vomiting, he said.
The attacks come against a backdrop of a wave of unrest
among the region's mainly Christian ethnic minorities
which prompted the authorities to close off the region and
send in the army in early February.
About 100 pupils and teachers had been "chemically
poisoned" in the different incidents across the province,
the deputy head of Dak Lak's governing people's
committee, Nguyen Van Lang, told AFP.
But another official said 116 children and staff had been
"poisoned" in twin attacks in a single commune Monday.
All the victims had been rushed to hospital suffering from
dizziness and vomiting after the attacks on the Le Loi
primary school and Nguyen Dinh Chieu secondary
school in the Chu Hue commune of Ea Kar district, the
communal official said, asking not to be named.
The mass-circulation Ho Chi Minh City daily, Thanh
Nien (Youth), said almost 200 people had been
poisoned in five separate attacks across Ea Kar and
Krong Bong districts between Monday and Wednesday.
The trade union newspaper, Lao Dong (Labour), said
there was also another attack on a different school in
Krong Bong district on Monday in which more than 40
people were "seriously injured."
And the child protection official said a further 20 children
were injured in an attack on the Nguyen Van Be primary
school in a third district -- Krong Paek -- on Thursday.
The officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the
chemicals used or who they believed to be responsible.
But Lao Dong said the poisonings were caused by "some
strange chemical with a bad smell that had been brought
into the classroom by some strangers."
A doctor at the provincial hospital in Buon Me Thuot
said victims reported seeing a "yellow or white powder
blowing in the air" inside their classroms.
The foreign ministry remained tightlipped Friday about
the incidents, as it has about all aspects of the ethnic
unrest.
"The Dak Lak provincial authorities said they are
investigating the event," ministry spokeswoman Phan
Thuy Thanh said.
The education system has been one of the main focuses
of the protests with separatist "troublemakers" leading the
minorities in a boycott of the region's overwhelmingingly
Vietnamese-language schools, the official media said last
month.
The schools targetted in this week's attacks taught in
Vietnamese rather than the region's four main minority
languages.
The child protection official said the victims were mainly
ethnic Vietnamese although the communal official said
they had also included members of the Ede, Nung and
Tay minorities.
This week's poisonings were not the first such attacks
reported by the official media during the unrest.
In February shortly after violent protests in the region's
main towns, Lao Dong reported that 45 children and four
teachers had been treated for breathing difficulties after
"chemical" attacks on two schools in a fourth district of
Dak Lak -- Krong Buk.
Two teachers and five pupils were rushed to provincial or
district hospitals in a serious condition, the paper said,
although it put at least one of the attacks down to a
delinquent pupil.
Agence France Presse - April 6, 2001.
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