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“My body crumbled because of the pain, but this group of strangers continued to beat me while using words to taunt me: ‘Aren’t you scared now, Hung? Don’t you care about your friend, dear?’”

In a Facebook’s post , the victim, Ta Manh Hung, recounted the horrible experience that he and four of his friends encountered on the evening of April 6, 2019, on Tam Dao mountain.

The group was traveling together that weekend, hoping to explore one of Vietnam’s most praised national parks and its rainforest, located in Vinh Phuc province near Hanoi. Prepared to spend the night at a camping grounds inside the forest, yet halfway to the destination, their journey was abruptly cut short when about a dozen strangers, all males, surrounded the group. The men then proceeded to use force to tie each of the youngsters to a tree stump about 20 meters apart and then they assaulted them.

The ordeal lasted for a couple of hours until nightfall, and when the weather began to get cold in the forest, the assailants decided to take off. They left the victims still tied up and took all of their personal property, including their mobile phones, cameras, watches, Kindles, back-up chargers, and the wallets that contained their identification papers.

Cold, scared and beaten, these youngsters, however, were able to use their teeth to slowly untie each other. Afterward, they managed to go to the nearby Tay Thien Pagoda to seek refuge for the night. The next day, local people helped them report the incident to the police of Tam Dao district.

The group’s violent encounter was first reported on Facebook in Vietnam last week. As it went viral, the public started to demand answers from the local authorities, prompting the mainstream media also to cover the story. In an interview with Nation (Tổ Quốc) newspaper, the police of Vinh Phuc province stated that they took the incident seriously and that they would handle it according to the law and regulations.

The public’s anger, however, may also be explained by the fact that Tam Dao national park has attracted the concern of many in recent months. Vietnamese people were wary that an ongoing development project, being constructed in the center of the rainforest might destroy its natural landscape and ecosystem.

A little more than three months ago, there were reports that Tam Dao’s primary rainforest and its diverse fauna and flora were under threat of environmental destruction.

Sun Group – one of Vietnam’s largest real estate developers – together with the government of Vinh Phuc province had initiated the construction of a resort in the middle of the national park. While the developers insisted that they were building an “ecotourism” project, environmentalists in the country decried the idea, stating that it would cause irreversible damages to the hundred-million-year-old rainforest’s ecosystem.

A Facebook group called Save Tam Dao started to document the current stages of theSun Group development project. It also called on others to join in and save the rainforest. Save Tam Dao has received quite a lot of support from Facebook users in Vietnam, especially among the younger generation.

Last month, together with other environmental activists and organizations, this group also initiated an online petition with Avaaz.org, calling on the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to publicly reveal the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment.

Groups of youngsters have also started to travel more frequently to Tam Dao to take pictures of nature’s beauty. Some of those pictures, however, also showed the devastating damage that the resort’s development project had created thus far.

Hung’s group attempted to do the same thing during the previous weekend: travel to Tam Dao and explore the rainforest’s beauty. But its members tragically had a terrorizing encounter where they were robbed and assaulted.

It was, however, quite peculiar that the attackers also forced the group to give up the passwords of their phones. Once able to gain access, they then immediately began reviewing all of the stored messages and photos at once.

Hung was the only one that had refused to give up his passwords. As he later stated, he did not want unknown strangers to intrude on his privacy. The moment he did not comply, his suffering increased. These men tied him up, covered his head and beat him for hours, trying to get him to give up the password.

Irritated by his continuing refusal, the assailants threatened to plant drugs on his body and report him to the police. Then, they carried him up, still with his head covered, and told him that they would throw him down the abyss. Seeing Hung did not respond to the threats, they started to put various types of insects inside his clothes to let them bite him. To prevent others from hearing his screams, they stuffed Hung’s mouth with some handkerchief.

What was so important that the assailants were willing to use such tactics to gain access to Hung’s phone and would even use torture to get it? We may have to wait for the police investigation report to find out more.

This latest attack, however, raised many questions about public security and safety in the area. Tam Dao is a national park; it belongs to all of the people, and all of its people should be able to enjoy its beauty safely. But right now, it seems that not only the rainforest at Tam Dao is crying for help but so are the ones who love it.