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| Twenty-six Inmates Escape Rehab Center in Vietnam |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 06/17/2002 |
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A group of drug addicts quietly filed through iron bars with guitar strings to escape from a rehabilitation center in southern Vietnam after hearing that authorities planned to extend their treatment, an official said recently. The 26 inmates at the new An Binh center in southern Ho Chi Minh City also used fish sauce in their unusual breakout. They applied the sauce - a typical Vietnamese condiment - to the bars to make them rust, before using the steel guitar strings to file through the bars, a center official said on condition of anonymity. The inmates escaped on May 31 after the city decided to increase their minimum stay to at least two years. Vietnam has sought to control its worsening heroin problem by requiring that all addicts be treated at such centers, despite their high failure rate. Officers recaptured 16 of the escapees and asked the families of the other 10 to send them back if seen, the center official said. The center, established late last year, holds about 400 mainly heroin addicts. The government launched a nationwide crackdown on drugs after the number of addicts rose by 10 percent last year to an estimated 103,000, state-run media reported recently. The national government plans to send all known addicts through mandatory rehabilitation programs by the end of 2005. Last year, it extended the minimum stay to a year, up from three months. |
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