War refugee reunites with long lost son after 34 years

A Vietnamese war refugee who survived a 1977 pirate attack that separated him from his wife and infant child reunited with his grown son in upstate New York on Monday after nearly 34 years apart. Hao Truong was tossed into the South China Sea after pirates attacked a boat taking refugee families to Thailand in December 1977. He said he managed to stay afloat for 16 hours before being rescued by a fishing boat. In a Thai refugee camp, Truong learnt weeks later that his wife had died — her body washed up on shore along with another female victim. But he said he'd long assumed that their seven-month-old baby, Kham, had survived and was raised by someone else. Truong resettled in the United States in 1978, sponsored by an uncle living in Louisiana. Excited On a trip to Thailand in June after hearing Kham might be alive, a social worker helped him locate his son, now a 34-year-old father of two named Samart Khumkhaw who lives in Surat Thani province. "At this minute, I feel so excited and happy," Truong said as he stood next to his son at Rochester's airport surrounded by two dozen relatives and friends waving tiny US flags and "Welcome Home" balloons. US Senator Charles Schumer helped Truong obtain a visitor's visa for his son, a carpenter, to travel alone to Rochester to meet his father's family. In late 1978, Truong travelled to Rochester to meet his late wife's siblings and stayed. He remarried, raised four children and was a metalworker for 30 years before being laid off in 2009. At age 54, he's studying for a community college degree and retraining as a machinist. During four days of captivity before being pushed overboard, Truong said the pirate boat crew seemed enthralled at how cute his child was. "That's why he never think for a moment that anybody would kill this little baby," said his sister, Hong Truong. More than three million people fled Communist-controlled Vietnam and neighbouring Laos and Cambodia after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Many sailed long distances in overcrowded small boats, at risk of shipwreck and pirate attacks. The plight of the so-called "boat people" turned into a humanitarian crisis as they came under sometimes deadly assault.