Koeum Srey

We were travelling on the main road at Bak Nim village, Kampot Province. We came across a modest cement house surrounded by rice fields and palm trees. The air had an aroma of fresh greenery greeted us warmly on her front door. The lady’s name is Koeum Srey, she is about 60 years old. She said that she used to study until almost 4th grade until 1975-76, when she was evacuated into the children’s unit. She had to eat and sleep with other people and then was assigned by Angkar to do farming and watch the fields for almost a year then she started to dig lands and canals far away from her homeland. In the early year of 1975, she mentioned ever since she was separated from her family, her father died that year too. She didn’t know the reason, but she knew people with rich status or with high education would be chased down and killed. It was a saddening realisation of how horrible to know how people died without a reason. We comfort her in silence by giving her our time to listen to her story. We then ended the interview with gratitude and a smile as we walked out of her home.