HANOI (UCAN): Catholics in the mountainous province of Son La in northwest Vietnam, have been providing emergency aid to ethnic villagers reeling from a renewed outbreak of Covid-19. The contagion broke out again in many villages and communes in late December.
Father Joseph Nguyen Tien Lien, pastor of Mai Yen Parish in the Mai Son district of Son La province, said that the Hmong people are badly affected by travel restrictions as they work on farms and collect vegetables from forests for a living.
Father Nguyen said on 29 December 2021 that local Catholics gave rice, instant noodles, cooking oil, fish sauce, salt, eggs and vegetables to 88 Hmong families in the hamlet of Phieng Hinh, which is four kilometres from the church.
He said the gifts, worth 37 million dong [$12,700], were donated by benefactors and priests from other places.
The hamlet’s population of some 450 people has been quarantined since December 26 after over 120 people were infected with Covid-19.
Police set up checkpoints on paths leading to the hamlet and few people could enter the pandemic-stricken area.
“We had to give the gifts to village authorities so that they could offer them to the victims as we could not approach them,” the priest explained, adding that half of local people might be infected as they do not know how to protect themselves from the virus.
He said local people suffer from a lack of basic food and clothes and live in ramshackle huts.
“We are quite delighted to help the victims to overcome the health crisis although they are not Catholic,” said the priest, who is active in charitable work and evangelisation among ethnic groups.
Father Nguyen, who was assigned to the parish in 2017, said he and volunteers gave emergency relief to 47 Hmong households in the hamlet of Pao Cua, in the district of Yen Chau. The hamlet is 24 kilometres from the church and has been quarantined since December 27 after the first local people became infected 10 days earlier.
Each household received 10 kilos of rice, one package of instant noodles, one kilo of pork, 10 eggs, one bottle of fish sauce and masks.
The priest said they also had to give the aid to local authorities so that they could pass them to the victims.
He said the pandemic spread from the hamlets of Pao Cua and Phieng Hinh to other hamlets and villages occupied by the Hmong.
“We will try our best to provide the victims with more basic food until restrictions on movement are lifted and they can go out to work,” he said.
Anna Nguyen Thi Lan from Muong Nhe Parish in the neighbouring province of Dien Bien, said that Father Joseph Nguyen Ngoc Ngoan and two assistant priests from Dien Bien Parish provide pastoral care for 3,000 Hmong Catholics. Last month they offered clothes, blankets, food and money to poor ethnic families and Covid-19 victims.
Nguyen, a mother of three, said that most ethnic families lack food and clothes year round and depend on Church donations. They ask priests for money to pay for their medical treatment at public hospitals, to repair their huts and cover their children’s school fees.
She said the priests also run two hostels for 200 Hmong students who study at public schools. They have to ask for rice, vegetables and other donations from local people to feed the students as benefactors have reduced financial support due to the prolonged pandemic.
Nguyen said that the pandemic flared up again in northwestern provinces after many people, who worked away from home, got Covid-19 and infected their villages when they returned home from southern provinces and neighbuoring Laos and China to celebrate the New Year.
Dien Bien and Son La provinces are home to various ethnic groups who live in poverty and have limited access to education, health care and other public services.
