The World - News from Aug. 10, 1988

Fifty-two Vietnamese “boat people” who arrived in the Philippines in June after a torturous 37-day voyage across the South China Sea have told refugee workers that they drowned some of their fellow passengers and ate their flesh to stay alive, the Manila Chronicle reported. The victims included three children, ages 11, 12 and 15, a a 22-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man, according to the report. The survivors told the relief workers that two of the victims had died of starvation but that three others were killed by drowning. Robert Cooper, representing the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters he did not not know if the account was entirely accurate.