The pitiful encounter in the depths of the Lao jungle changed the life of the photographer who documented it. It should also have changed the lives of the people he photographed. When Philip Blenkinsop met this group of Hmong in January 2003, they were in hiding, desperate, trapped in an inconceivably terrible existence. They threw themselves on their knees when they saw him, believing rescue had come at last. It hadn’t.
The Hmong migrated to Laos from China in the 19th century – to escape persecution, ironically. In the second world war they sided with the French against the Japanese. Thirty years ago they were trained by the CIA to fight with the Americans in Vietnam, believing in their promises of an independent homeland when