Last Families Evicted From Monivong Hospital Site

Thursday, July 13, 2006

By Pin Sisovann and Elizabeth Tommei
The Cambodia Daily

All 168 families who lived on land next to Phnom Penh's Preah Monivong Hospital have been evicted, police and human rights workers said this week. Many families initially resisted the eviction, which began early this month to make way for a development by Kith Meng's Royal Group of companies. "The relocation was solved," said Moek Dara, a Ministry of Interior anti-drug police official appointed to a committee set up to carry out the relocation "The new land will give people a stable spirit of ownership," he said of the alternative land given to evicted families. However, more than 100 of the 168 families have opted to live with family or friends in the capital rather than move to the relocation site in Ang Snuol district, Kandal province, more than 30 km outside Phnom Penh, said Som Ath, an investigator with local rights group Licadho. Som Ath said on Monday that about 40 homes had been erected at the new site, though not all were occupied. Evictees and rights workers have repeatedly deemed the relocation site unlivable, as it lacks water, a sewage system, electricity and schools. Families of police officers living at the site were paid $1,300 and civilian families $500 as compensation for their eviction. Each family was allotted 7-by-14meter plots of land in Kandal province.