On June 10th, 1979 Israel took in 366 refugees who were fleeing the devastation of the Vietnam War. When the United States withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, some 130,000 South Vietnamese were forced to flee. American planes and artillery destroyed the Vietnamese countryside by dropping 14 million tons of munitions. Many Vietnamese peasants and farmers were left homeless, and with their farms and fields destroyed, nationwide hunger and starvation followed. China and other neighboring countries imposed economic sanctions on Vietnam that led to extreme poverty, and violent internal conflict in Cambodia and Laos continued to destabilize the region.More than one million people fled Vietnam between 1975 and 1995. Refugees endured harsh traveling conditions as they encountered storms, disease, starvation, and the threat of pirates. Many of the boats left without any assurance that they would be allowed in a port and were often turned back by authorities upon arrival at nearby shores, which made the refugee journeys even longer and more precarious. Some estimates put the number of people who died at sea as high as 400,000. In 1977, an Israeli cargo ship bound for Japan saved the lives of 66 people on one of these boats. The Vietnamese passengers ran out of food and water, and they were near the point of starvation and death. They had signaled passing German, Norwegian, and Panamanian cargo ships for help, but their SOS calls were ignored. The Israeli crew immediately offered food and water before telling them to come on board to Israel. Once they had reached Israeli shores, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin authorized citizenship and protection for the Vietnamese refugees. When asked why Israel had protected these passengers while other countries had refused, Begin brought up the example of the SS St. Louis, a boat that carried 900 Holocaust survivors who were turned away by every nation during the Holocaust and had to return to Germany to face the Nazi onslaught.After that initial rescue in 1977, Israel welcomed 200 more Vietnamese refugees.