Evicted residents of Phnom Penh live in 'refugee' like camp

A man stands in the camp.

Residents live in 'refugee' like camp.

Residents were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes.

Residents live in 'refugee' like camp.

Residents were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes.

Residents were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes.

Residents were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes.

Residents from the Borei Keila community who were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes in January 2012 still live on a campsite which resembles a refugee camp, 45 km from the city. The Cambodian Company Phan Imex acquired the land to develop

16th of June 2012
Demotix

Residents from the Borei Keila community who were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes, still live on a campsite which resembles a refugee camp, 45 km from the city. The Cambodian Company Phan Imex acquired the land to develop.

Description:

The Phnom Penh Borei Keila community was, prior to 2003, a poverty dwelling for around 5000 men, women and children. In 2003 the Cambodian construction company Phan Imex acquired the Borei Keila land for re-development into luxury accommodation, offices and retail spaces. Phan Imex was given 50% of the land for their own development opportunities if they agreed to build new homes for some of the displaced residents on the other half. Apparently the company has still not yet built 20% the homes they promised, and may never do so, even though perhaps 99% of the dwellers have been evicted from the land. Phan Imex Company chief Suy Sophan is reputedly the 7th richest person in Cambodia and one of the best connected - networked - individuals in the country.

Hundreds of families originally living in the slum did qualify for one of the new homes to be built on the development and some were offered, in lieu, a land plot on a distant relocation site under Oudong mountain (Srah Po Phnom Bat Kandal province) 45km from Phnom Penh. In January 2012 around 300 families were forcibly evicted from Borei Keila and either taken to Oudong or a similar relocation site. Some families refused and were reportedly detained until they were persuaded to sign and accept the new plot at Oudong.

Six months later the relocation site is a dusty barren plot of land around 1.5 hours drive from Phnom Penh by tuk tuk. The homes are crudely constructed tents fashioned from blue ‘Korean’ tarpaulin sheets, old cardboard and wooden sticks. There are no basic sanitary facilities: toilets, showers or washbasins a distant memory. No electricity to power a fan or a night-light. No running water. Human faeces decompose oh so slowly on the ground around the site, just a stone throw from the shacks and sleeping babies. The nearby bushes stink of stale urine and excrement. Garbage blows in the eye rubbing dust filled air with every puff of wind. The land is awash when the rains arrive even though the residents have tried to carve tiny gullies around their tent homes to keep their feet dry.

An ill young woman, retching, spews her vomit as I walk around and her children try to bury it with an old adze. An old women sleeps alone in tiny box tent, a layer of bricks raises her cardboard mattress from the ground, as the space is not tall enough to fashion a wooden bed to sleep on. She boils her rice on a boy-scout fire and tin windshield outside her home, crouching in the dust, fanning the embers with a plastic paddle.

Soum Sokantay’s baby is little more than one month old. “He was born onto the dusty ground in our tent as there were no medical facilities close enough to get to,” she tells me, continuing that, “an NGO gave me a small mattress for him and a hammock,” which is proudly strung outside her tent.

Last month in May 2012 the Phnom Penh city hall provided and installed two deep water hand pumps for the site and now Mr. Cheany tells me: “We can drink water without becoming sick. The old pump did not work well and the water was bad when they tested it. They told us not to drink it but we had no choice.”

Many of the families are resigned to living on this desolate campsite. They have lost their work in Phnom Penh, as it is impossible for them to commute there: “I used to wash pots in a restaurant. Here there is no work. My husband goes into the bush to cut firewood so we can cook the rice the NGO gives us,” Soum Sokantay tells me as she fondly cradles her baby.

Some, perhaps two or three, lucky families still own a tuk tuk or moto for transport if they can afford the gas. They can collect garbage and junk clothes to sell in Phnom Penh when they have cleaned and patched them up. They recycle other peoples rubbish to make a little cash.

Nyen Sopha has no husband, just a young daughter who is 5 years old. “I am trying to make a little coffee shop in my home to get some money. I used to work in a laundry in Phnom Penh but now nothing,” she explains. Incredibly, the young boy from the “recycling family” turns up and buys a plastic bag of coffee from her, as do my driver and translator.

“There is a school [military] around here somewhere and I hope that my daughter can go there,” she comments as she pours the water through her coffee filter.

A number of NGO’s and charities that have visited the site have described it as: “an unfit area for humans to live in.” Many, I believe, would agree if they visited the ground that Phan Imex have awarded these families as compensation for the homes, work, friends and community, they evicted them from in the capital, poor as it was.