This guest blog is by our friends & partners Refugee Council. To see all the ways they are supporting Refugee Week visit here.
Leon is proud of his refugee heritage. For Refugee Week, he tells the remarkable story of his family’s journey, passing on a message of compassion for the refugees of today.
My Dad was a refugee and so was his family. Now I realise what they had to go through.
There was a genocide in Cambodia, led by the Khmer Rouge. All of my grandma’s side of the family who stayed were murdered.
My grandad met a gangster who said he could take them out of Cambodia, to Vietnam. It was a tough journey, and when they arrived in Vietnam, they realised the gangster was a people trafficker. They had gone from being slaves in one country to being slaves in another.
My family ended up on a fishing boat that was going to go to Hong Kong. My dad was only a baby.
The boats were very crowded, and on the journey, people started dying. There was barely any oxygen and very little to eat or drink. They sent an SOS signal and luckily there was a British cargo ship passing by, called the Sibonga. The captain stopped to help and brought them on board. Only two boats had survived and a thousand people were still alive.
A lot of people are really unwelcoming, and think refugees are taking our jobs, they’re not good for our country. But there’s nothing wrong with them, they just want a safe place to live.
Once they reached the UK, they lived in a refugee camp for two years in the New Forest, at a place called Sopley near Christchurch. Most of the other families were Vietnamese. That’s where my dad lived from the age of two until four. We went there for a reunion, it was very emotional.
The Ung family in the Sopley refugee campA lot of people are really unwelcoming, and think refugees are taking our jobs, they’re not good for our country. But there’s nothing wrong with them, they just want a safe place to live.
For the refugees I’d say: just keep on having hope. Hope was the main thing my family had, that was the main thing that kept them going. I’m proud of my family—it shows how hard they’ve had to work to get where we are now!
I love acting and dancing, I’ve been in a couple of adverts and a short movie called The Long Goodbye, it won an Oscar. I’ve also been in Matilda. Emma Thompson was just brilliant. One second she’s really nice, the next second she’s like Mrs Trunchbull, she just switches, and you’re like—what just happened?
My message is always be welcoming and be kind to refugees—you don’t know the journey they’ve been on—and for refugees, always have hope. ■
Leon Ung is a young actor and dancer. His latest film is Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal, and he is also dancing in an upcoming Disney film set to be released in 2024.
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