Tower and Town, September 2016 (view the full edition)A True StoryWhen justifying why we in UK should accept more refugees and asylum seekers I often say that, given what they have survived both in their countries of origin and their journeys to get here, by definition these will be exceptional people who will make a positive contribution to our society. In 1980 I worked as a nutritionist member of Oxfam's emergency team in Cambodia, following the fall of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. When the time came, after four months, for members of the team to return to the UK and be replaced by others, we were approached by six young Cambodian friends who had worked with us as interpreters and supporters of our work in the provision of emergency food, and in the fields of health, education and water and sanitation. They made it clear to us that they feared for their lives at the hands of the hard line communist regime, because of the close relationship they had developed with us and asked if we would help them to flee the country. We gave them the financial assistance required to travel on foot for two weeks across Cambodia from Phnom Penh to the border with Thailand where, having bribed the guards at the border, they gained entry to one of the many refugee camps on the border. One year later, having managed to persuade the British Government that our friends should be issued with visas, we found ourselves welcoming them to a resettlement centre in Brighton. Amongst them was a young married couple Borithy and Somali Lun who during the 4 ½ years of the Khmer Rouge regime had suffered appalling deprivation and witnessed the deaths of members of their families in what became known as the "Killing Fields". They were eventually housed in Witney, Oxfordshire where Borithy worked initially on a check-out counter in Waitrose in Oxford, and brought up their two girls, Thida and Bophani, born soon after their arrival in the UK. Kate and I used to visit the family regularly to celebrate Cambodian New Year or Christmas and watched the girls grow until one Christmas, we received a card from Borithy and Somaly to say that they had some good news. Thida, now eighteen and educated at the local state school in Witney had won a scholarship to St Hilda's College, Oxford. From Oxford she went on to work as a civil servant in the Department for International Development and was posted by DFID to Sudan, Iraq, Kabul in Aghanistan and thence to Sierra Leone. Bophani the younger daughter took up a career in teaching and is a primary teacher in Brighton Since then, Borithy and Somali have left the UK and returned to Phnom Penh to work for development agencies in Cambodia. I rest my case! Nick Maurice |