By FRANCE 24
Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge genocide, survivors try to forget. In the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge for those who were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime.
A morning in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, 30 years after the Khmer Rouge genocide. We are in the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital and it is crowded. Most of the patients were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime. Himself a survivor, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat is the first psychiatrist to address the killing fields syndrome. His patients number in the thousands. They all bear heavy psychological scars.
A civil war, bombings, masacres and purges that cost the lives of one quarter of the population - 1.7 million victims. For a generation of survivors, it is impossible to forget. For some of them, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge. Like for Theary: "It was three days after I gave birth to my first son…Angkar, the Khmer Rouge brought in some people…And then, they killed them all in front of us…To make an example…To teach us to obey… It s the reason why, since then, I see a man who runs very fast…He escapes into the ricefields….Then there is another man…With black clothes…He shoots him in the back…Then he falls…This image always stays in my head… "
Theary is able to describe her nightmares but most of the patients cannot. For the doctor, silence is a key contributor of the violence that undermines Cambodian society today. And for a cure, he relies on mysticism: "Here you have a kind of palm tree leaf. It is this kind of thing that can take away their despair and anxiety" he says. A handful of Khmer Rouge leaders are about to go on trial in an international tribunal. The killing fields syndrome shows just how deep the trauma of the genocide is.
A morning in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, 30 years after the Khmer Rouge genocide. We are in the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital and it is crowded. Most of the patients were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime. Himself a survivor, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat is the first psychiatrist to address the killing fields syndrome. His patients number in the thousands. They all bear heavy psychological scars.
A civil war, bombings, masacres and purges that cost the lives of one quarter of the population - 1.7 million victims. For a generation of survivors, it is impossible to forget. For some of them, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge. Like for Theary: "It was three days after I gave birth to my first son…Angkar, the Khmer Rouge brought in some people…And then, they killed them all in front of us…To make an example…To teach us to obey… It s the reason why, since then, I see a man who runs very fast…He escapes into the ricefields….Then there is another man…With black clothes…He shoots him in the back…Then he falls…This image always stays in my head… "
Theary is able to describe her nightmares but most of the patients cannot. For the doctor, silence is a key contributor of the violence that undermines Cambodian society today. And for a cure, he relies on mysticism: "Here you have a kind of palm tree leaf. It is this kind of thing that can take away their despair and anxiety" he says. A handful of Khmer Rouge leaders are about to go on trial in an international tribunal. The killing fields syndrome shows just how deep the trauma of the genocide is.
