Up TO 100,000 Vietnamese Catholics have descended on a town in central Vietnam to mark the 200th anniversary of a reported apparition of the Virgin Mary.
The Catholic festival at La Vang, the biggest ever held in communist-ruled Vietnam, has transformed the dusty site in Quang Tri province into a tent city.
Two roads leading to La Vang off the main north-south Highway One were jammed with arrivals yesterday before the official opening of the politically sensitive event. Police estimated that the festival had already attracted up to 100,000 pilgrims. Although conditions for religious groups have eased in recent years in Vietnam, they are still subject to state controls.
Fides, the Catholic news agency at the Vatican, last week reported that police, citing security reasons, had restricted the number of pilgrims allowed to travel to La Vang.
Despite the enormous numbers of people involved in the event, official media have barely mentioned it.
About eight million of Vietnam's 78 million people are Catholic, making it the biggest Catholic community in South-East Asia after the Philippines.