Vietnam prepares for 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon
World
Thousands of people from all over the country are expected to attend the parade
(Reuters) – Ho Chi Minh City lined its streets with flags and posters on Tuesday as it prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war when North Vietnamese tanks burst through the gates of the presidential palace and Communist forces took control of the city.
With the anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the city's name before the end of the war, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1975, residents were seen in a jovial mood, dancing on the street, taking photos while waving flags and dressed in national colours.
Ha Minh Nguyet, 63, who was a student during the reunification, recalls the emotions of the moment of liberation in 1975. “When the country was liberated in 1975, I was a student and our whole school marched in the streets, and now, 50 years later, not only am I able to live in a peaceful time, I am also living again in that same atmosphere.”
Thousands of people from all over the country are expected to attend the parade and participate in other celebratory activities to mark 50 years of the end of one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in modern history.
The Vietnam War lasted for two decades and killed nearly 60,000 Americans, many of them young soldiers drafted by their government. Some three million Vietnamese died on both sides of what is known in Vietnam as the American War.
