Tourism Ministry Organises Bidong Island Clean-up Programme

KUALA TERENGGANU (Terengganu, Malaysia) April 4 (Bernama) -- The Terengganu chapter of the tourism ministry will organise a programme to clean up Bidong Island for a week beginning this Saturday. The programme, a collaboration with the Vietnamese refugee community from Australia, United Kingdom and United States, is aimed at maintaining and conserving the island's biodiversity. The chapter said in a statement on Thursday 20 Vietnamese volunteers from the three countries would participate in the event. A religious ceremony will also be held by the Vietnamese to offer prayers to their ancestors who were buried in the island. Bidong Island is is situated off the coast of Terengganu state in eastern Peninsular Malaysia. Bidong Island used to be the transit point for Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War in the 1970s before they were selected to go to a third country in the west under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees programme. -- BERNAMA