June 22, 2020 The Vietnamese Boat People were a series of refugees that fled Communist Vietnam in a mass exodus occurring in 1954, and again from 1975-1992. In 1954, the Northern Vietnamese fled to Southern Vietnam to escape the corrupt and violent Viet Minh regime. Under the Viet Minh, anyone deemed an enemy was prosecuted under the full extent of the law: this included Catholics, intellectuals, landowners, and generally anyone that disobeyed the regime.