To avoid a 14-day quarantine required for legal arrivals at official border crossings, the visitors from China skirt border checkpoints on foot by taking smaller roads, or take small boats across rivers. Lao and China share a porous 250 mile (420 km) border. “In July, almost 300 Chinese sneaked into Luang Namtha province without passports. They were going to the casino in Bokeo province,” A member of the Luang Namtha provincial Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Control and Prevention told RFA’s Lao Service.
torsdag 6. august 2020
Chinese Workers and Gamblers Illegally Stream Into Laos to Avoid Quarantine
Laos has detained and deported hundreds of Chinese nationals in recent months for illegally entering the country to sidestep a mandatory 14-day coronavirus quarantine period and head straight to casinos to gamble or work, sources in the country told RFA. Most of the illegal border crossers are tourists bound for casinos in northwestern Bokeo province’s Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a gambling and entertainment district that caters mainly to Chinese tourists that has been described as a de-facto Chinese colony.
To avoid a 14-day quarantine required for legal arrivals at official border crossings, the visitors from China skirt border checkpoints on foot by taking smaller roads, or take small boats across rivers. Lao and China share a porous 250 mile (420 km) border. “In July, almost 300 Chinese sneaked into Luang Namtha province without passports. They were going to the casino in Bokeo province,” A member of the Luang Namtha provincial Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Control and Prevention told RFA’s Lao Service.
To avoid a 14-day quarantine required for legal arrivals at official border crossings, the visitors from China skirt border checkpoints on foot by taking smaller roads, or take small boats across rivers. Lao and China share a porous 250 mile (420 km) border. “In July, almost 300 Chinese sneaked into Luang Namtha province without passports. They were going to the casino in Bokeo province,” A member of the Luang Namtha provincial Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Control and Prevention told RFA’s Lao Service.
