Migrants From China Damage Canadian Prison

Anger at the prospect of being returned to China may have sparked a disturbance by nearly 50 Chinese boat people being held in a British Columbia prison, Canadian authorities said Monday.

The migrants destroyed windows, toilets and ignited small fires in incidents that began late Sunday at the Alouette River Correctional facility near Vancouver, according to a British Columbia Corrections spokesman.

No injuries were reported and the disturbances were under control by midday Monday. However, the 49 migrants refused to leave one of the badly damaged dormitories at the medium-security institution, prison system spokesman Sheldon Green said.

Negotiations were underway. While authorities said they did not know the exact cause of the outbreak, tensions had been rising since early May when other boat people were returned to China after being refused refugee status in Canada.

“They’re seeing their various options are far as routes of of appeal [to the courts] being exhausted . . . so although they don’t know when, they know their return is imminent,” Green said.

The migrants held at the facility in Maple Ridge, B.C., were among nearly 600 Chinese detained after they were captured after arriving on Canada’s Pacific Coast last summer in four dilapidated smuggling boats.

Authorities believe the smuggling gangs that operated the boats planned to move the migrants through Canada to the United States, where they would then force the people to work off the thousands of dollars they charged them for the trip.