Seven families of four Chinese mainland women who had been drowned late last month when being smuggled to Taiwan arrived in Taibei Tuesday night to seek a fair settlement of the disaster.  

On Aug. 26, 26 mainland women being smuggled to Taiwan on two speedboats were pushed into sea by Taiwan smugglers to evade Taiwanese coast guard patrols. Six of them were drowned and two injured.

The victims' families arrived at the Taoyuan Airport of Taipei around 11:00 pm and went through DNA sampling.

The father of Xiaoying, one of the drowned women, told Xinhua that his daughter had called home at noon on Aug. 23 and there was no more information about her in the following days. He did not know how the human smugglers cheated her.

The father almost fell in a faint mentioning the three-year-old kid left by Xiaoying. He urged the Taiwan authorities to seriously punish the smugglers.

The parents of Xiaoli, also one of the victims, were in such a deep sadness of bereavement that they could not talk while being interviewed.

Li Lidong, an official with the Red Cross Society of China, expressed the hope that the Taiwan authorities could offer humanitarian assistance to the victims' families and make the issue handled justly.

The families of the victims will stay in Taiwan for three days.

(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2003)