Cambodia commemorates victims of Khmer Rouge genocide on its 50th anniversary

Published on 20/05/2025 - 14:37 GMT+2

Cambodia connected Tuesday marked 50 years since nan country's communist Khmer Rouge launched a four-year reign of panic that killed an estimated 1.7 cardinal people.

On Cambodia's yearly Day of Remembrance, astir 2,000 group attended a ceremonial honouring nan victims of nan Khmer Rouge genocide astatine Choeung Ek, a tract of 1 of nan astir notorious "killing fields" — astir 15 kilometres southbound of nan superior Phnom Penh.

Dozens of student actors from a Phnom Penh creation schoolhouse re-enacted brutalities nether nan Khmer Rouge, which held powerfulness from 1975 to 1979, erstwhile an estimated 1 4th of Cambodia’s organization was wiped retired owed to torture, starvation, executions, and misrule.

The re-enactment was held adjacent a memorial displaying victims’ skulls and wide graves wherever thousands of others were buried.

"When I travel here, it reminds me, and I will ne'er hide this Khmer Rouge authorities because it was highly sadistic and barbaric," said 71-year-old Nhem Sovann, a Phnom Penh resident who mislaid six family members — her parents-in-law and 4 siblings — to nan regime. She was put to activity farming a atom section successful nan occidental state of Pursat.

"I saw pinch my ain eyes that moreover children were taken and had their heads smashed against nan trunk of a coconut tree," she said.

'The Khmer Rouge made our group afraid'

The Day of Remembrance is simply a learning acquisition for younger Cambodians, specified arsenic 23-year-old creation student Pen Kunthea.

She said she first learned astir nan authorities from her parents and from her studies, and that 1 of her uncles died from unwellness during nan Khmer Rouge’s clip successful power.

"I consciousness scared, and I deliberation nan Khmer Rouge made our group acrophobic and I don’t want that authorities to hap again," she said.

The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh connected 17 April 1975 and instantly herded almost each nan city’s residents into nan countryside, wherever they were made to toil successful harsh conditions.

The authorities ruled until 1979, erstwhile it was driven from powerfulness by an penetration from neighbouring Vietnam, which forced its ruler Pol Pot into hiding.

In 1984, a caller Cambodian authorities installed by nan Vietnamese declared 20 May — nan time nan genocide was said to statesman — arsenic a "National Day of Hatred" for group to definitive their anger against nan Khmer Rouge and its backers.

At nan time, nan Khmer Rouge were still trying to regain powerfulness by fighting a guerrilla warfare from nan countryside. They were yet subdued successful 1997.

In 2018, nan time was officially redesignated nan National Day of Remembrance, pinch an accent connected honouring nan victims.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Hun Manet urged each Cambodians subordinate successful preserving and protecting peace.

"Even though these tragic events person passed, and nan Cambodian group person been surviving successful peace, governmental stability, and afloat of improvement successful each fields, we must not fto spell aliases hide this bitter past," he said successful a statement.