As of January 8, 61 of the 152 Vietnamese tourists who went missing in Taiwan in late 2018 had been found, with 39 of them men and the remainder women. During the search, Taiwanese police also found many other illegal Vietnamese laborers, Thanh Nien Online newspaper reported.

File photo of tourists who book tours at a local travel firm. As of January 8, 61 of the 152 Vietnamese tourists who went missing in Taiwan in late 2018 had been found - PHOTO: VGP

According to the National Immigration Agency of Taiwan, 31 of them had turned themselves in to the police, while the remainder had been arrested by police and the competent agencies, which left 87 still at large.

The police on January 8 found four members of the tour groups that went missing in late December last year and four other illegal Vietnamese laborers in the Wuqi District of Taichung.

Specifically, after observing a van taking Vietnamese from Hsinchu to Taichung, the police entered a building in Wuqi and found four of the tour group members and three other illegal workers. Another illegal Vietnamese worker was found hiding inside a refrigerator.

The police noted that the stowaway, 1.6 meters tall and weighing 50 kilograms, had been hiding from authorities for 1,278 days. He was allegedly responsible for arranging for a car to pick up the four missing Vietnamese tourists.

Earlier, the police also captured three other illegal Vietnamese workers who were hiding under a bed in an apartment in Hsinchu City.

As shared by several Vietnamese workers in Taiwan, illegal workers find ways to escape and hide when the police launch raids, such as by jumping through windows, hiding inside trash bins, hiding on the roof or running into forests, where they are often injured or killed.

SGT