The struggle with 'white death' in the border village of Keo Nam

Drug transit point

At the end of March, we followed Mr. Nguyen Viet Dung - Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Bac Ly Commune (Ky Son) to Keo Nam village - the most disadvantaged village in this border commune. “It is very poor up there. I have been to many places, but have never seen such a poor place. The first time I set foot in the village, I burst into tears when I witnessed such poverty. Keo Nam village is not only the poorest in Nghe An, but perhaps the poorest in the country,” Mr. Dung said before starting the journey by motorbike.

Mr. Dung is a Border Guard Captain who was assigned to Bac Ly commune more than 5 years ago. At that time, all the houses in Keo Nam village still had thatched roofs and tattered bamboo walls. On rainy nights, the whole village stayed awake almost all night because the houses leaked everywhere. Faced with that situation, 3 years ago Bac Ly commune supported each household with 30 million VND to put up corrugated iron roofs. Currently, except for newly-relocated households that still have thatched roofs, most of them no longer have to live in dilapidated conditions. However, hunger and poverty still surround them.

Keo Nam village center. Photo: Tien Hung

Keo Nam village is more than 20 km from the commune center, but to get there, you have to cross steep rocky slopes, taking nearly 2 hours by motorbike. But that is for locals who know the way, but for teachers who come to the village for the first time, it can take half a day. On rainy days, the road becomes muddy, so you can only "stay where you are" if you don't want to walk.

57 Khmu households with 306 people live on a towering mountain top. This area is close to Huoi Xui village of Keng Du commune and not far from the border with Laos. From the center of Vinh city to get here, it is about 320 km. However, for the people up here, they are not familiar with the concept of km. For them, the distance is calculated by the time it takes to ride a motorbike or a few days of walking.

We arrived at Keo Nam village near noon, but the fog still surrounded the houses that were close together. This is a common scene for villages living at an altitude of more than 1,000m above sea level like Keo Nam village. The first image we encountered was women sitting on stilt houses with thoughtful looks, smoking cigarettes, looking into the distance. "There are few fields here, I don't know what to do, so I just stay at home," said Ms. Luong Me So (45 years old).

Sister So’s house is located in the middle of the village, still with a thatched roof and bamboo walls. However, in her hand, this woman holds a rather expensive phone, next to her is a motorbike without a license plate. When we went to Keo Nam village, Sister So kept complaining about poverty and hardship. However, 2 days later, when we had just come down the mountain, we received news from Bac Ly Commune Police that Mother Luong So had been arrested.

Sister and her husband Xeo Bun Thi were arrested for "Illegal possession of narcotics", with evidence of 6 packets of heroin and 35 synthetic drug pills. Sister's husband is a serious drug addict, his household registration is in another village but he has been living with Sister for several years now. Arrests like this happen "like clockwork" in Keo Nam village. Sister is the 7th person in the past month to be arrested for "Illegal possession of narcotics".

When we went to Keo Nam village, we were still talking and taking pictures of Luong Me So, but 2 days later, this couple was arrested. Photo: Tien Hung

“The 7 people are only counted in Keo Nam. People from other villages who come to Keo Nam to buy or sell drugs are always arrested. We don’t keep statistics,” said Cut Van Dinh, Secretary of Keo Nam village’s Party Cell. In recent years, due to the large number of drug addicts and its geographical location bordering Laos, Keo Nam village has become an ideal place to transit drugs. Those in the ring carry the “goods” across the border, then hand them over to many Keo Nam villagers to sell to drug addicts in the area.

A prosperous past

The people of Keo Nam village used to live on the other side of the mountain, about 30 minutes by motorbike from the current location. Although they lived quite isolated, their life at that time was very prosperous. Every household had a barn full of buffaloes and cows, a house full of rice. Motorbikes ran all over the road. Notably, when they were still in the old location, all the people of Keo Nam village had majestic stilt houses made of precious wood, beautifully carved. Therefore, Keo Nam village more than 10 years ago was considered the most prosperous and beautiful in this remote border area.

In 2012, to move the people of Keo Nam village closer to the commune center, Ky Son district organized the relocation of people to their current location, for convenience in traveling. However, since then, the drug whirlwind has come, sweeping away everything that the people of Keo Nam village had. At that time, young men in Keo Nam village also began to move to Quang Nam to work as gold miners. Sadly, after a series of days working in the gold mines, what they brought back to their hometown was not money but addiction. Wooden houses were dismantled and sold one after another after craving for drugs. In a moment, the whole village was left with only dilapidated houses, thatched roofs, and bamboo walls.

“Back then, the Keo Nam stilt houses were very beautiful. But every time they had an addiction, they would take off a panel and sell it for drugs, and in no time, they lost their house,” said a commune official who had worked for many years in Keo Nam village. There is still no electricity in this village. A few years ago, Bac Ly commune had to support each household with a solar panel to have electricity for lighting. However, after a short time, most of these panels were also taken off and sold for drugs. When there was nothing left in their house to sell, they had to move to nearby Mong villages to work on the fields for hire. They worked every day, received the same day’s wages, and most of them were used to buy drugs.

After going to rehab in 2022, the former Secretary of Keo Nam village Party Cell took his wife and children to work far away, leaving the house in the village abandoned. Photo: Tien Hung

According to Mr. Cut Van Dinh, the entire Keo Nam village currently has only 57 households, but at its busiest, there were more than 50 drug addicts. “On average, every household has an addict. There are rare households where no one is addicted, but there are also households where both husband and wife or father and son are addicted,” said Mr. Dinh.

This is a rough estimate, because in reality the number of addicts here could be much higher. Because few people dare to openly admit that they are addicted.

Mr. Dinh, who was the Deputy Head of the Military Command of Bac Ly Commune, was promoted to Secretary of the Keo Nam Village Party Cell nearly 2 years ago. After the commune leaders discovered that his predecessor was a serious drug addict, neglected his work, and that person's wife was also addicted. Keo Nam Village could not find anyone to be the Secretary of the Party Cell, so the commune leaders had to assign Mr. Dinh to hold the position concurrently. Every week, he had to travel a long distance to go to the village to grasp the situation.

A house in Keo Nam village. Photo: Tien Hung

The village has 57 households, but when we arrived, only 31 households were still living there. The rest had abandoned houses, and their families had gone to work far away. Mr. Cut Van Dinh said that most of them left about a month ago, after the police arrested many people for "Illegal possession of drugs". "Some people were so hungry at home that they had to go to work for hire, but many others were afraid of being arrested. That's why there probably aren't many addicts left in the village now," Mr. Dinh said.

In Keo Nam village, there is now a fairly well-built kindergarten, while the primary school only has grades 1 and 2. Although the school is right next to the house, getting the children to attend class regularly is a problem for the teachers. "Every morning I go around the village to take the children to school. If not, they just stay home and play," said a teacher stationed here.

According to Mr. Moong Van Keng - Head of Keo Nam village, the whole village currently has only more than 30 students from kindergarten to junior high school, of which 8 are orphans. That is not to mention some children whose parents are in prison or in drug rehabilitation. "From the past until now, no one in Keo Nam village has finished high school. The highest student only studied up to grade 10 for a few days and then dropped out. Most of the villagers are poor households, only a few households are near-poor. Until now, no one has escaped poverty," said Mr. Keng.