Illegal immigration, vagrants ad beggars continue to be a problem for the government authorities of HCMC. While there are now fewer beggars who were injured and crippled during the war years in the centre of former Saigon, the number of beggars with severe birth defects or deformed by illness that can be seen in the streets has increased - sometimes chased away, but usually condoned by the police. Some of the deformities are blamed on the effects of agent Orange, dropped more than thirty years ago as a defoliant by US military forces in the Vietnam countryside.
This beggar gets a Dong note from a person riding past in a taxi.

Photographer: Chu Phuc Kinh Luan (36) from Ho Chi Minh City. He has 8 years experience as a photo journalist and works currently for the HCMC English daily Saigon Times. His tutor was Gary Knight, Agency VII, London.

 


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