Why not even the deaths of 39 migrants who suffocated in a lorry have stopped Vietnamese risking all to reach Britain: It’s now the fastest-growing nationality on the small boats… and DAVID JONES visits community where nearly 1 in 10 has left for Europe [Video]

17:04 EDT 26 Apr 2024, updated 19:46 EDT 26 Apr 2024

The young girl’s grave is embossed with a haunting photograph that captures her innocent beauty. 

Her grief-wizened mother lights incense and places a chocolate cake on the headstone: leaving food to nourish the deceased is a Vietnamese custom.

Then, after whispering a prayer, Tran Tri Hien — whose Catholic faith is a legacy of French colonial rule — begins talking to her daughter, whose baptism name was Anna, as though she were still alive. 

‘I like to let her know what’s happening in the family and tell her the latest village gossip,’ she explains wistfully, through my translator.

Watching this poignant scene in the weed-strewn cemetery in Do Thanh, a timeless village surrounded by paddy fields, 170 miles south of the capital Hanoi, one was reminded — if any reminder were needed — of the misery wreaked by illegal mass migration.