When Hanh Tran waded through deep estuary mud towards a waiting boat on a dark night in July 1979, he could not have imagined the ordeal that was about to begin.

He was part of a mass movement of 800,000 people boarding boats of all sizes to flee a country ravaged by years of conflict and instability. They became known as the Vietnamese Boat People.

When the North Vietnamese Army marched into Saigon in April 1975 some were uncertain about what their new rulers had in store, but Hanh was not. His father had left the communist north many years before, and knew what to expect.