191 drug addicts take advantage of a fight to escape from a rehabilitation center: they are looking for them “urgently”

Things have gotten out of control at a rehabilitation center in Vietnam. After a riot among the patients, 191 drug addicts fled the clinic break down doors, jump over fences and go through a hole in the wall.

It happened inside Soc Trang. As confirmed by the director of the Drug Detoxification Center of that province, Nguyen Thanh Binhto the local media Tuoitre, 417 people were in the clinic at the time of the mass escape.

The escape was triggered by a fight between patients. Some drug addicts began to suspect that other colleagues were reporting their drug use to the authorities and this led to a series of daily fights that culminated in the afternoon of February 24th.

Everything exploded when the Soc Trang police met with the authorities of the center to collaborate with 45 drug addicts linked to this conflict.

Around 4.30 pm some patients incited others to oppose the police, which eventually happened. Then, in the midst of the mess, 191 patients took advantage of the guards’ inattention to escape from the center. There were only three police officers injured.

At 7.30pm on February 26th 114 of the 191 fugitives returned to the facilities “voluntarily” and will receive a “reduced” sentence, Binh confirmed. The rest are still on the street.

The case is being urgently followed by the provincial party committee and the provincial people’s committee.

Rehabilitation centers in Vietnam

Vietnamese centers like the one in Soc Trang host patients who in most cases do not go there of their own free will. They are interned and subjected to abstinence for at least two years.

Many times these drug addicts live together saturated centers and when they break the rules to which they are subjected isolation.

In the case of the Soc Trang clinic, only 60 guards were responsible for all the drug addicts.

The event came as Vietnam experimented with other community treatment options in response to harsh criticism of its drastic rehabilitation methods. Specialists argue that these centers do not work and that relapse rates are high.

According to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Vietnam, “more than half of these centers do not have adequate infrastructure or equipment“, which is why it is not the first time that mass escapes have occurred.