The rule of Pol Pot (1975-1979) and the Khmer Rouge was responsible for two million deaths in Cambodia out of a population of seven million. A combination of dissident executions, forced labor, disease, and starvation were the main causes.
Choeung Ek is about 15 miles from Phnom Penh. Here, an estimated 17,000 Cambodians were executed by the Khmer Rouge. The first thing I noticed while visiting the “Killing Fields” was that it was eerily silent. It had the same feel as when I visited Mauthausen, a Nazi concentration camp in Austria. Continue reading
K. Wahlgren 