W AR, and the threat of war, mark the contemporary history of the Indochinese region; and one of the most striking and poignant reflections of the human costs of this continuing political instability has been the massive outflow of refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea (the former Cambodia). Since early 1975 at least one million people have fled from these three countries, with by far the largest number leaving Vietnam.' Accurate statistics for the tide of refugees an difficult to establish. No agreed figure exists, for instance, for those 'boat people' refugees who have perished at sea before making landfall, and there have been suggestions that deaths at sea could have claimed the lives of as many as 50 per cent of the numbers who reached land. While this estimate is almost certainly too high, there is no doubt that the number of deaths through drownings and attacks by pirates has been large and, at very least, involves a figure of 28,000 persons-or 10 per cent of the refugees who have arrived in the various countries of South-east Asia and in Hong Kong by boat.2 The problem of establishing accurate statistics is further complicated by the presence in Thailand of refugees from both Kampuchea and Laos whose numbers are not officially recorded. Perhaps as many as 40,000 hill people from Laos fall into this category-they are living with only minimal contact with the Thai authorities in remote northern regions of the kingdom. The number of Kampuchean refugees in Thailand living outside camps established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has fluctuated almost daily as a function of the developing conflict just to the east of the Thai-Kampuchean border. As of early November 1979 there