As many as a quarter of a million refugees spent some time at Bidong throughout those years. From the late 70's till 1991, Pulau Bidong was an island camp for Vietnamese refugees (boat people) fleeing from Communist persecution and hardship, and was declared a restricted zone, off-limits to visitors. Mainly ethnic Chinese, at its peak, there were as many as 45,000 Vietnamese 'boat people' living here. Today, all the refugees have been resettled in other parts of the world or have repatriated, and after 1999, restrictions on visiting the island was lifted.