Father and son coaxed from jungle 40 years after fleeing Vietnam War

After four decades, Ho Van Lang and his 82-year-old father Ho Van Thanh finally emerged from the jungle where they had gone to escape the Vietnam War.

Initial reports said the pair was last seen in 1973 entering the jungle after the man's wife and two other children were killed by a landmine.

It was later confirmed that, in fact, it was the man's mother and her two grandchildren that died.

The pair was found living in a dense area of forest in the Tay Tra district of Quang Ngai province in central Vietnam.

Evidently, Ho Van Lang fled the violence at just one year old.

Viet Nam News said locals had spotted them while hunting for firewood and alerted police, who eventually found them.

Authorities said they were barely able to communicate and no contact with the outside world over the past decades.

The one exception was Ho's brother, who had tracked the father and son down 20 years earlier, but the pair refused to return home.

They had been living in a treehouse, hunted animals for food and survived on corn, roots and local fruits, BBC reported.

Ho Van Thanh is reportedly very ill and was sent to a hospital while his son, now 41, is adjusting to a new life.

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