Vietnam marks fall of Saigon

The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People’s Army of Vietnam and theNational Liberation Front of South Vietnam (also known as the Việt Cộng) on April 30, 1975. The event marked the end of theVietnam War and the start of a transition period to the formal reunification of Vietnam into a socialist republic, governed by theCommunist Party of Vietnam.

The capture of the city was preceded by the evacuation of almost all the American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians associated with the southern regime. The evacuation culminated in Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history.[2] In addition to the flight of refugees, the end of the war and institution of new rules by the communists contributed to a decline in the city’s population.

April 30 is celebrated as a public holiday in Vietnam as Liberation Day or Reunification Day. People get the day off, as well as May 1, and the holiday is filled with many public celebrations.

Among Vietnamese refugees in the United States and in many other countries, the week of April 30 is referred to as Black April and is used as a time of commemoration of the fall of Saigon. The event is approached from different perspectives, with arguments that the date was a sign of American abandonment, or as a memorial of the war and mass exodus as a whole.