Friday, January 12, 2007

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) sound the alarm [for 1,300 relocated families]

Thursday, January 11, 2007

By LF
Cambodge Soir

Translated from French by Luc Sâr

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Action Contre la Faim (ACF) said that they are very preoccupied by the fate of about one thousand families living in Phnom Penh suburb. Numbering 1,300, these families used to live along the Bassac rivers [in Phnom Penh] before being forced to relocate in June of 2006 by the government which sold the lands they previously owned. Relocated to Andoung district, the families lack everything: no access to drinking water, no electricity, nothing to cook with and to build their homes. “They cannot keep thousands of people under these conditions indefinitely,” Philippe Berneau, MSF-Cambodia chief, denounced.

The two human rights associations have attempted to provide to the needs of the families by distributing hammocks, mosquito nets, soap and water filters. But the people remain at the mercy of diseases linked to the lack of safe drinking water. Once ill, they do not have access to any medical care service. According to MSF and ACF, the authorities should be involved in providing these families with decent housing, away from sanitary problems.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave life time achievement that is to make dirt poor Cambodian people homeless on their own land!!!