Editing Ngo Dinh Diem (section)

=== Partition ===
{{main|Operation Passage to Freedom}}
On 21 July 1954, the Geneva Accords temporarily partitioned Vietnam at the 17th parallel, pending elections in [[1954 Geneva Conference#Provisions|July 1956]] to reunify the country. The [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] controlled the north, while the French-backed State of Vietnam controlled the south with Diệm as the Prime Minister. Diệm criticized the French for abandoning [[North Vietnam]] to the Communists at Geneva, claimed that the terms did not represent the will of the Vietnamese people, and refused French suggestions to include more pro-French officials in the government.{{sfn|Chapman|2013|p=69}}
 
The Geneva Accords allowed for freedom of movement between the two zones until October 1954; this put a large strain on the south. Diệm had only expected 10,000 refugees, but by August, there were more than 200,000 waiting for evacuation from Hanoi and [[Hải Phòng]]. Nevertheless, the migration helped to strengthen Diệm's political base of support as the refugees, mostly Catholic, were strongly anti-communist. To deal with the refugee situation, Diem's government arranged for their relocation into fertile and under-populated provinces in the western Mekong Delta. The Diệm regime also provided them with food and shelter, farm tools, and housing materials as well as digging irrigation canals, building [[Levee|dykes]], and dredging swamp-lands to help stabilise their lives.{{sfn|Moyar|2006|p=40}}