Two killed in gang clash in Vietnam

Oct 12, 2009, 5:04 GMT

   Hanoi - Two men were killed and three wounded in a gang shooting at a restaurant in the northern Vietnamese port and tourist city of Ha Long, a police official said Monday.

   The shooters in the attack Sunday night were members of a gang from Ha Long's Cam Pha neighborhood, said Tran Huu Tai, a senior Quang Ninh province police official. He said the victims were members of a rival gang from the neighborhood of Bai Chay.

   The shooters used modified bird-hunting guns. Rifles and handguns are difficult for private citizens to obtain in Vietnam.

   The newspaper Thanh Nien reported the two gangs had first clashed Saturday at a club. Gang members from Cam Pha stabbed a member of the Bai Chay gang at the show, and attacked the group again while its members were bringing the injured man to hospital, stabbing another member.

   On Sunday night, several Bai Chay gang members spotted some Cam Pha gang members eating at a restaurant and fired on them. They killed Nguyen Van Dung, 22, and Do Thanh Vuong, 34, and wounded three people, including the restaurant owner.

   Lieutenant General Nguyen Huu Tuoc, director of the Quang Ninh provincial Police Department, said police had arrested several of those involved and seized a modified bird-hunting gun.

   Quang Ninh province has been the scene of several recent killings related to clashes between gangsters.

   In December, six people were killed and one wounded when one gang, also using modified bird-hunting guns, ambushed a rival gang competing to smuggle coal from illegal unlicensed mines to nearby China.