As the night falls, soldiers at the Border Guard Station at Duong Dong Port prepare their luggage for the night patrol at sea. Speedboats are their means of transportation on the sea while life jackets will help them keep warm at night.
Each speedboat carries three to five officers and soldiers who will patrol alternatively to avoid leaving the water unattended, leading to the risk of criminals and illegal entry.
Due to the location and the task of controlling both sea and island areas, the role of soldiers at Border Guard Station at Duong Dong Port is more difficult than that of land border guard units.
August,the beginning of the rainy and stormy season in addition to complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic made the soldiers’ task of protecting the sea and islands face even more difficult.
Lieutenant Colonel Su Van Thong, Commander of the Border Guard Station at Duong Dong Port said the implementation of anti-pandemic work during the day is not bad thanks to a long range of vision and border guards can thus easily control activities at sea. But at night, they face many difficulties and challenges.
“Due to the small vehicles, high waves and strong winds during this season, and the vast area needing to be patrolled; it is difficult to detect cases of illegal entry and the transportation of contraband goods by ship to Phu Quoc Island. But no matter how difficult it is, soldiers try their best and encourage each other to overcome all difficulties to complete the task,” Thong said.
“Working in a marine environment is quite doable during good weather but on the days of rough seas and storms, it is hard to take the fatigue,” said Captain Cao Minh Sang, Acting Chief of the Border Guard Station at Duong Dong Port.
Although night duty at sea is both tough dangerous, border guards are always willing to protect the nation’s important marine gateways. Just one minute of negligence or missing one case of an illegal entry with COVID-19 virus, could bring unpredictable consequences.
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Officers and soldiers of the Kien Giang Border Guard prepare to patrol at sea.
The task of the border guards at the north of Phu Quoc Island is more difficult than in the south as the north of the island is close to the coastal city of Sihanoukville of Cambodia.
It takes just a short time for a fishing boat from Sihanoukville to arrive to a fishing village in Phu Quoc’s Ganh Dau commune, a fact which requires border guards in the north of Phu Quoc to be on high alert.
A number of coastal patrol groups and posts have been established to coordinate with each other on their patrol around the island.
With their courage and support equipment, the border guards have successfully completed their tasks and detected almost all those illegally crossing the sea into the island over the past two years.
They have also organised medical quarantine for illegal entries according to regulations and did not let a single case of COVID-19 spread to the community in Phu Quoc Island.
Major Tran Van Tu, deputy head of the Ganh Dau Border Guard Station said “Since the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unit has organised a patrol force using motorboats to patrol the sea every night. On days with bad weather, speedboats can not go to sea, so the unit arranged soldiers to stay at fishing cages and fishing boats anchored offshore. Through these secret positions, teams can still observe the situation at sea and fulfill their assigned tasks.”
Colonel Doan Dinh Trinh, deputy political commissar of the Kien Giang Border Guard, said that illegal entry by sea remains very complicated while the sea area is so wide and both border forces and means are limited in number. Therefore, each team and soldier on duty must work many times harder than normal to prevent and handle illegal entries during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trinh noted.
However, illegal entry has become increasingly sophisticated, with more underhanded tricks. Since the beginning of this year, 266 people who illegally entered Kien Giang have been arrested and taken to quarantine facilities according to regulations.
